Speaker 1: In case you're just recently joining us, or however long
Speaker 1: you've been a listener of the show. You may not
Speaker 1: realize we have years and years of incredible episodes in
Speaker 1: our archive. We've had so many wonderful guests that we've
Speaker 1: decided to handpick one of our favorites that may be
Speaker 1: new to you, but if not, it is definitely worth
Speaker 1: another listen. We hope you'll enjoy this episode with Michelle Gielan.
Speaker 2: As a researcher.
Speaker 3: If I note the first few words of a conversation,
Speaker 3: I can have a high degree of likelihood of predicting
Speaker 3: the outcome.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers
Speaker 1: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes
Speaker 1: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think,
Speaker 1: ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts
Speaker 1: don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 1: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 1: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 1: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 1: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent and creative effort
Speaker 1: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 1: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 1: how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Our guest on this episode is Michelle gielan national CBS
Speaker 1: News anchor turned positive psychology researcher, and she is the
Speaker 1: best selling author of Broadcasting Happiness. Michelle is the founder
Speaker 1: of the Institute for Applied Positive Research and is partnered
Speaker 1: with Arianna Huffington to study how transformative stories fuel success.
Speaker 1: She is an executive producer of The Happiness Advantage special
Speaker 1: on PBS and a featured professor on Oprah's Happiness Course.
Speaker 1: Michelle holds a Master of Applied Positive Psychology from the
Speaker 1: University of Pennsylvania, and her research and advice have received
Speaker 1: attention from The New York Times, Washington Post, Forbes, CNN, Fox,
Speaker 1: and Harvard Business Review.
Speaker 4: Hi Michelle, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you so much for having me. It's great
Speaker 2: to be here with you.
Speaker 4: I'm happy to have you on. You work with and
Speaker 4: your husband is Sean Aker, who wrote a book called
Speaker 4: The Happiness Advantage, and you have a new book out
Speaker 4: called Broadcasting Happiness, which we'll dive into here in just
Speaker 4: a minute. But before we do. Let's start like we
Speaker 4: always do, with the parable. In the parable, there's a
Speaker 4: grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life,
Speaker 4: there are two wolves inside of us that are always
Speaker 4: at battle. What is a good wolf, which represents things
Speaker 4: like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is
Speaker 4: a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred
Speaker 4: and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about
Speaker 4: it for a second, and he looks up at his
Speaker 4: grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And
Speaker 4: the grand father says, the one you feed. So I'd
Speaker 4: like to start off by asking you what that parable
Speaker 4: means to you in your life and in the work
Speaker 4: that you do.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 3: I love that parable ever since I read it many
Speaker 3: many years ago, and now I get to look at
Speaker 3: it from a scientific perspective as a positive psychology researcher.
Speaker 3: And what's amazing is that, you know, our brain, Our
Speaker 3: brain's an incredible processor. We can process forty to fifty
Speaker 3: bits of information every single second.
Speaker 2: Of the day.
Speaker 3: The challenge is that from all of our nerve endings,
Speaker 3: our brain has bombarded by more than eleven million bits
Speaker 3: of information every second So what that means is inherently
Speaker 3: there are choices and how we devote our attention, right,
Speaker 3: because if we first focus on the hassles, complaints, problems
Speaker 3: and challenges, we literally don't leave our brain resources left
Speaker 3: over to focus on the things that we're grateful for,
Speaker 3: the meaning embedded and the work that we're doing, the
Speaker 3: close relationships that we have. And so just like you know,
Speaker 3: the little boy asked who wins for us, the way
Speaker 3: our life life unfolds is a result of how we
Speaker 3: devote our attention. If we can make those positive, conscious choices,
Speaker 3: then our life completely changes in a positive way.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree completely. I love that comparing our attention,
Speaker 4: you know where we're putting our attention to the wolf parable. Now,
Speaker 4: your book is called Broadcasting Happiness, and it comes from
Speaker 4: the idea that you were an anchor woman and what
Speaker 4: you started realizing was that the way the news was
Speaker 4: being reported was always negative and it was actually driving
Speaker 4: people away from it, and so you began looking at
Speaker 4: ways that you could broadcast a better message. Is that
Speaker 4: a good summary of kind of where you started.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I was so lucky to have the
Speaker 3: opportunity and the platform of two national news programs at CBS.
Speaker 3: But what I quickly saw was that a lot of
Speaker 3: the news we were reporting was so negative. But it
Speaker 3: was more than just the negative to positive stories. It
Speaker 3: was a the fact that a lot of the stories
Speaker 3: just merely focused on the problem. We didn't talk about
Speaker 3: what could be done about the problem. And so what
Speaker 3: we see now in our research is that a barrage
Speaker 3: of negative news stories basically feeds you this lie that
Speaker 3: your behavior doesn't matter. Because if we just constantly talk
Speaker 3: about problem, problem, problem, problem, and we don't focus on
Speaker 3: what is our role in solving these situations, then we
Speaker 3: are left feeling hopeless and helpless. And that's what a
Speaker 3: lot of people feel when they just see a newscast
Speaker 3: for a couple minutes or they read stories online. More recently,
Speaker 3: you know, since I left CBS News, I partnered with
Speaker 3: my husband, Shawn ay Korn ariana Huffington, and we've been
Speaker 3: studying the effective news on the brain.
Speaker 2: And what we found is that just three minutes of.
Speaker 3: Negative news in the morning can lead to you having
Speaker 3: a twenty seven percent higher likelihood of reporting your day
Speaker 3: is unhappy six to eight hours later. So what that
Speaker 3: means is that negative mood and mindset we adopt in
Speaker 3: the morning is where know, making breakfast or we're on
Speaker 3: our way to work actually sticks with us through our
Speaker 3: workday and we're still feeling the effects, you know, when
Speaker 3: the day is almost over.
Speaker 4: Yeah. And you also talk about a study where people
Speaker 4: who watch the local news view their city as significantly
Speaker 4: more dangerous than it really is. So they think it's
Speaker 4: more dangerous than what the actual facts say. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, And so it goes back to sort of what
Speaker 3: we were talking about at the top of the program,
Speaker 3: which is, you know, you only have these finite resources.
Speaker 3: If we suppen if we spend those resources filling our
Speaker 3: brains with how dangerous the world is, how our community
Speaker 3: is failing, how things are going wrong, how the world
Speaker 3: is broken, then our brain doesn't have those resources to
Speaker 3: look at ways in which our behavior matters or which
Speaker 3: ways in which we can affect a positive outcome. You know,
Speaker 3: the title of my book Broadcasting Happiness, someone wrote on
Speaker 3: a comment on Amazon something which you know, I totally
Speaker 3: agree with, which he is like, well, in some ways
Speaker 3: the title doesn't do the content justice and that you're
Speaker 3: not saying, hey, just broadcast some you know, Pollyanna Rose
Speaker 3: colored glasses look of the world.
Speaker 2: We don't want to just be.
Speaker 3: Talking about puppies and kiddies and water skiing squirrels, right.
Speaker 4: It's really about things though.
Speaker 2: Yeah, those are all great things, especially the squirrel.
Speaker 3: We really want to be focusing, you know, we want
Speaker 3: to spend some of our resources, of course, like laughing
Speaker 3: and having fun in the humor, but we also want
Speaker 3: to talk about if we're talking about problems, talk about
Speaker 3: what we can do and source out solutions, and then
Speaker 3: also focus on stories of individuals and organizations where people
Speaker 3: have overcome challenges or they've done inspiring things, and that
Speaker 3: gives our brain hope and optimism that we too can
Speaker 3: create progress and success in our own lives.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of things in what you just said
Speaker 4: there that I want to touch on. The first is
Speaker 4: listeners who have been with the show for a long
Speaker 4: time know that I'm skeptical of positive thinking, and that's
Speaker 4: not what you're advocating here, and so I'll ask you
Speaker 4: to maybe elaborate a little bit more on you know,
Speaker 4: why this isn't positive thinking. And then the other thing
Speaker 4: that you talked about through all of those things is
Speaker 4: not about ignoring that there's bad things, but it's about
Speaker 4: not believing that we are helpless in the face of them,
Speaker 4: or not believing that there isn't something we can do,
Speaker 4: and that feeling of helplessness or that there's nothing we
Speaker 4: can do it can be one of the leading causes
Speaker 4: of depression.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so the reason I left CBS was because I
Speaker 3: wanted to understand how we can talk about the negative,
Speaker 3: whether it be on TV or around the dinner table
Speaker 3: in our businesses, in a way that does not leave
Speaker 3: people feeling helpless and hopeless, but actually leaves you feeling
Speaker 3: empowered and ready to take that next step to create
Speaker 3: positive action. Psychologically, it's a completely different state to be
Speaker 3: in that latter state. And so you know, I got
Speaker 3: the opportunity to study under doctor Martin Seligman, who's the
Speaker 3: founder of the field of positive psychology at the University
Speaker 3: of Pennsylvania, and he's actually the person who did incredible
Speaker 3: work on learned helplessness. Originally, learned helplessness is this learned
Speaker 3: behavior that your mind can adopt as a result of
Speaker 3: learning that your behavior doesn't matter. It's actually also considered
Speaker 3: the gateway to depression. Now, he saw how powerful that
Speaker 3: mindset can be in our lives and how that mindset
Speaker 3: can be learned. And he said, well, what if we
Speaker 3: flip the coin over and we look at the other side,
Speaker 3: and we say, well, can we teach then learned basically empowerment,
Speaker 3: you know, teaching somebody their behavior matters. And so what
Speaker 3: I study now is the science behind a success mindset.
Speaker 3: What causes you to be most successful.
Speaker 2: In your life?
Speaker 3: What are the ingredients, how does your mind work as
Speaker 3: a result, and then how can other people import those
Speaker 3: elements into their own thinking to achieve more and thrive.
Speaker 3: And what we found our research is that there are
Speaker 3: three greatest predictors of long term levels of success. So
Speaker 3: we study this primarily in the work domain because we
Speaker 3: work with Fortune five hundred companies and schools and other organizations,
Speaker 3: but this also very much applies to one's relationships and
Speaker 3: their home life and their parenting. And what we found
Speaker 3: in short is this that it's work optimism, what we
Speaker 3: call support provision, and then your relationship with stress. So
Speaker 3: work optimism is the belief that your behavior matters and
Speaker 3: the expectation of good things to happen. It's taking a
Speaker 3: realistic assessment of the present moment.
Speaker 2: Like you mentioned but.
Speaker 3: Then in the midst of all those challenges, believing you
Speaker 3: can actually do something about it and good things will
Speaker 3: eventually come about if we work hard. The second one
Speaker 3: is our story about stress. Do we view a stressful
Speaker 3: event as a challenge where our brain gets lit up
Speaker 3: to its highest potential and our brain and body are
Speaker 3: ready for that challenge, or do we cower and fear
Speaker 3: and look at it like a threat where our brain
Speaker 3: suffers consequences as a result. And the last one, which
Speaker 3: I find actually to me in some ways the most exciting,
Speaker 3: is this idea of support provision. Instead of asking how
Speaker 3: supportive is my company of me and my success and
Speaker 3: my progress, we look at something that's incredibly more predictive
Speaker 3: of long term success, which is how much you as
Speaker 3: an individual support the people around you. And the people
Speaker 3: who are in the top quartile the top twenty five
Speaker 3: percent of that metric are actually, as just one example
Speaker 3: in our research, forty percent more likely to receive a
Speaker 3: promotion over the next year than the people in the
Speaker 3: lowest quartile. When people soar in the top levels of
Speaker 3: all three of these metrics, they make more money.
Speaker 2: Over the course of their career.
Speaker 3: They are just incredibly successful on many fronts, But what's
Speaker 3: most exciting is that these three elements of our mindset
Speaker 3: are malleable, so at any point in our lives, we
Speaker 3: can develop higher levels of all.
Speaker 2: Three of them.
Speaker 4: The last one is interesting because you're talking about how
Speaker 4: we support other people and your book Broadcasting Happiness. That's
Speaker 4: kind of obviously it's a play on your time as
Speaker 4: a broadcaster, but it's also about the idea that we're
Speaker 4: all putting something out into the world that affects those
Speaker 4: people around us.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: A lot of the research in positive psychology, which is
Speaker 3: basically studying happiness and human potential, has looked at how
Speaker 3: we as individuals can thrive, and what my work now
Speaker 3: is looking at is, Okay, so when you have a
Speaker 3: positive mindset and you've done.
Speaker 2: All that work, how do you ripple that out to
Speaker 2: other people?
Speaker 3: And maybe also when you're not feeling as positive, how
Speaker 3: do you still have a beneficial impact on the people
Speaker 3: around you. We have a new program coming out called
Speaker 3: Inspire Happiness on PBS, and it was a result of
Speaker 3: the work that we did with companies and individuals where
Speaker 3: we would talk about all this research that looked at
Speaker 3: how you as an individual can thrive and people would say, Okay, well,
Speaker 3: so I'm totally into this, but how exactly do I
Speaker 3: help my child do well in school when I can
Speaker 3: see that they have potential, but you know my son
Speaker 3: doesn't believe it, Or how do I my negative spouse
Speaker 3: Like I'm optimistic one, but you know, maybe my spouse
Speaker 3: is not as optimistic as I'd hope for them to be.
Speaker 3: And so our show is and a lot of the
Speaker 3: content it's drawn from some of the ideas of my book.
Speaker 3: It revolves around this concept of you know, you have
Speaker 3: the power through what you say and how you say it,
Speaker 3: to really significantly change other people for the better. But
Speaker 3: we walk through the steps and give the tools of
Speaker 3: exactly how to do it. And then also we talk
Speaker 3: about the fact that you know, it is much easier
Speaker 3: to choose happiness yourself when you're able to help the
Speaker 3: people around you become happier at the same time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the importance of other people is a theme that
Speaker 4: keeps coming up on the show over and over again.
Speaker 4: And when you were saying that the supporting other people,
Speaker 4: it made me think of one of our guests, Chris Hoak,
Speaker 4: who when I read him The Wolf Parable, he said, well,
Speaker 4: the way I think about that is what wolf am
Speaker 4: I feeding in the people around me? And I thought
Speaker 4: that was really interesting perspective on it and really talks
Speaker 4: very much to what you're saying.
Speaker 2: Yes, I love that, you know, as a result of
Speaker 2: this work.
Speaker 3: I mean, of course I use it when I do
Speaker 3: work with clients, but I also end up using it
Speaker 3: on myself and in our family. We battle test it
Speaker 3: in our own house, and being married to a happiness
Speaker 3: research I have zero excuse not to do it. But
Speaker 3: what I have become hyper aware about is when I
Speaker 3: am feeding that other wolf, the wolf we don't want
Speaker 3: to feed right because I'm feeling negative. But I haven't
Speaker 3: slept very well the night before. I've got a two
Speaker 3: year old. As any parent knows, that can happen, and
Speaker 3: you know, I wake up in a grumpy mood, and
Speaker 3: I get to a point where I'm saying, Okay, I
Speaker 3: know that my day is not going to be as
Speaker 3: happy as it could have been had I just gotten
Speaker 3: a good night's sleep. But am I going to now
Speaker 3: inflict my suffering on everybody that I come into contact with?
Speaker 3: Or am I going to be a little bit more
Speaker 3: emotionally evolved hopefully you know, practice it every day and
Speaker 3: and just and realize that you know, what I talk
Speaker 3: about and whether I complain or whether I'm you know,
Speaker 3: moaning about how I didn't sleep, that really does impact
Speaker 3: other people. And so I think it's you know, a
Speaker 3: lot of people will say so when I give talks
Speaker 3: that companies, I'll say, so, how many of you raise
Speaker 3: your hand? Have ever heard from somebody you can't change
Speaker 3: other people? And I get I mean literally everyone raises
Speaker 3: their hand, right, You've heard this many many times.
Speaker 2: Over the course of your life.
Speaker 3: But we know, though that even though we're buying into
Speaker 3: this societal misbelief, we know that we change people all
Speaker 3: the time through what we talk about and even our
Speaker 3: nonverbal body language. And so owning up to that power
Speaker 3: and responsibility I think is a really important thing to do.
Speaker 4: I do think it's a myth also that we can't
Speaker 4: change other people. I think that we can't change other
Speaker 4: people and do exactly what we want them to be
Speaker 4: or doing exactly what we want. But yeah, we do
Speaker 4: have influence over people all the time, both positively and negatively.
Speaker 2: Yeah, without a doubt. I mean, if we see it
Speaker 2: in the research.
Speaker 3: I love, there's this one study from the University of
Speaker 3: California Riverside where researchers asked three people to go sit
Speaker 3: in a room for just two minutes without speaking, and
Speaker 3: then they tested their mood before and after. And what
Speaker 3: they found is that the person who's the most non
Speaker 3: verbally expressive right because they're not saying a word, but
Speaker 3: it's how they sat there, their body language, that their
Speaker 3: arms crossed, their faces frowning. Do they seem more positive
Speaker 3: and relaxed. Whoever was the most expressive person in the
Speaker 3: room influences the mood of the other two people significantly.
Speaker 3: And that's just two minutes. Can you imagine if we
Speaker 3: have the ability to talk to people and to say
Speaker 3: meaningful things, we can change other people and it happens
Speaker 3: all the time.
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Speaker 4: So go back to my earlier thoughts on positive thinking,
Speaker 4: because I want to ask you sort of what's the
Speaker 4: difference between what you are proposing and what's traditionally labeled
Speaker 4: as positive thinking positive thinking?
Speaker 3: I think, well, there's two major differences. First of all,
Speaker 3: we're looking at the science behind all of this, which says, okay,
Speaker 3: we know, for instance, that gratitude is good for you, right,
Speaker 3: and every single major religious tradition talks about it. All
Speaker 3: the leading thinkers through the ages have touted the positive
Speaker 3: side of being grateful and practicing it. What we ask
Speaker 3: is researchers is okay, well, how much should you do specifically,
Speaker 3: how do you do it? Do you involve other people
Speaker 3: in the practice, should you write in a notebook? Is
Speaker 3: it better on your computer? And if we do it,
Speaker 3: how much does it change you? You know, there was
Speaker 3: a study done with I love this study eighty year
Speaker 3: old grumpy Pessimists.
Speaker 2: And research I try to take co oximistic.
Speaker 3: And what I love about it is that, you know,
Speaker 3: these guys who had been practicing pessimism their entire life
Speaker 3: by doing gratitudes, by doing three writing down three new
Speaker 3: and unique things, they were grateful for specific things each day.
Speaker 3: Those that kept up the practice for six months went
Speaker 3: from testing on a metric as low to moderate level pessimists,
Speaker 3: they all of a sudden were testing as low to
Speaker 3: moderate level optimists. So we could see a change there.
Speaker 3: And the other thing is that sometimes positive thinking can
Speaker 3: be mislabeled as I mean or accurately labeled, depending on
Speaker 3: what you know. The person's promoting as sort of I'm
Speaker 3: going to think positively and stuff will happen and everything's
Speaker 3: going to be great. What I think is that you
Speaker 3: need a positive vision in your life, full of hope
Speaker 3: and optimism to get you going.
Speaker 2: That's the good fuel. But it takes action behind that.
Speaker 3: So broadcasting happiness is broadcasting that mindset while also taking
Speaker 3: the action to fulfill the vision of what you're looking for.
Speaker 4: Yeah, one of the questions that I talk about on
Speaker 4: the show, and I'm going to see if I can
Speaker 4: frame it in a way that makes sense. But there's
Speaker 4: a lot of talk about, hey, when you have an emotion,
Speaker 4: you should try and feel that emotion and not repress it.
Speaker 4: And then there's the other side of the coin that
Speaker 4: sort of says you should put a positive spin on
Speaker 4: things that happen in your life. How do you reconcile
Speaker 4: those two things for yourself?
Speaker 3: I would say that it's important to feel emotions. We
Speaker 3: actually we absolutely want to be in touch with them,
Speaker 3: but we have to catch ourselves not to allow ourselves
Speaker 3: to dwell in or ruminate on these negative emotions because ultimately,
Speaker 3: I don't think that actually helps you. There is value
Speaker 3: to kicking your brain out of that negative state, either
Speaker 3: distracting it or compelling it to move to a more
Speaker 3: positive place.
Speaker 2: You know. It's interesting.
Speaker 3: So my husband and I when we had our son Leo,
Speaker 3: initially when he started walking around and you know, falling
Speaker 3: down and stuff, we had completely different responses to him
Speaker 3: getting hurt, So not hurt really badly, right, but just
Speaker 3: like a little bump and he starts crying. And so
Speaker 3: I would come to our son and say, oh, Leo,
Speaker 3: did you get hurt? Oh, I'm so sorry, honey, where
Speaker 3: does it hurt? And Sean, while showing compassion, would very
Speaker 3: quickly switch to distraction, you know, and so we say, oh,
Speaker 3: look at that, there's a fire truck, or oh, look
Speaker 3: what's going on? And what we ended up we had
Speaker 3: a long discussion about this, and what we ended up
Speaker 3: doing was deciding to kind of meet in the middle
Speaker 3: where we honor the feelings that he was having. Right,
Speaker 3: it hurt, his knee was skinned, and we got to
Speaker 3: address that, but also not staying stuck there. And so
Speaker 3: then I adopted more of his his approach, which was like, Okay,
Speaker 3: now let's let's distract and let's figure out what's positive
Speaker 3: about life that we can move our brain onto.
Speaker 2: And I think it's worked really really well.
Speaker 4: Think that's a great analogy, and I also believe that
Speaker 4: it's the middle ground on a lot of these things
Speaker 4: that make sense, Like even what we were talking about
Speaker 4: before about you can't change other people that's such an
Speaker 4: extreme position. You know, there's somewhere between I have total
Speaker 4: control and I have no control over other people. That's
Speaker 4: sort of in the middle. And I think with that
Speaker 4: is the same thing in an analogy that I like
Speaker 4: to use, and you might have better ones because you
Speaker 4: do this more often. Is like if I walk into
Speaker 4: a hotel room, which I do often, if I look,
Speaker 4: there's inevitably something about that hotel room I'm going to
Speaker 4: be dissatisfied with, and there's something in that hotel room
Speaker 4: that I'm going to really like. And which of those
Speaker 4: am I going to choose? To back to your first piece,
Speaker 4: you talked about which of those am I going to
Speaker 4: put my attention on? And sometimes I have to very
Speaker 4: consciously keep putting my attention back to the positive one.
Speaker 4: But I think it does yield benefits.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, And sometimes where it's easier for us to
Speaker 3: keep our attention on the positive things. And I love
Speaker 3: your analogy because it's so visual, it's so easy. We've
Speaker 3: all done it right, We've all walked into a place
Speaker 3: and seen the problems as opposed to seeing the things
Speaker 3: that can bring us happiness and joy.
Speaker 2: But you know, and sometimes it's just a.
Speaker 3: Simple matter of how much sleep we've gotten, or if
Speaker 3: we're feeling burnt out from work, have we had practice
Speaker 3: keeping our mind in that positive state?
Speaker 2: Those things can matter greatly.
Speaker 4: Let's go deeper into the book with a couple of things.
Speaker 4: I want to talk about what you call the power lead.
Speaker 4: Can you tell us what that is?
Speaker 3: The power lead is where you start off conversations or
Speaker 3: any other interaction you have with another person by saying
Speaker 3: something positive and meaningful. The reason I suggest the power
Speaker 3: lead is one of the first tools that we talk
Speaker 3: about in the book is because it is so transformational
Speaker 3: to start a conversation in a positive place as opposed to.
Speaker 2: A negative one.
Speaker 3: I mean, we've all been in a meeting right where
Speaker 3: someone starts off negative and the whole thing only knows
Speaker 3: dives from there. Versus, if you can start off at
Speaker 3: a conversation when you're asked how are you by saying
Speaker 3: something positive and meaningful, or a meeting by listing gratitudes,
Speaker 3: delivering praise, or asking for people to contribute to a
Speaker 3: positive leading question, it completely changes the outcome. As a researcher.
Speaker 3: If I note even just the first few words of
Speaker 3: a conversation, I can have a high degree of likelihood
Speaker 3: of predicting the outcome of that conversation. You know, so
Speaker 3: mine this morning might have been if you asked me, hey,
Speaker 3: how are you? My power league could be Oh, I'm
Speaker 3: doing great, I had breakfast with my son this morning
Speaker 3: and he's being so cute. You know, just that simple,
Speaker 3: positive and meaningful piece of information encourages people to match
Speaker 3: in kind, and it changes the direction of the conversation.
Speaker 3: And it's not to say at any moment that we want.
Speaker 2: To ignore the negative.
Speaker 3: If you have a real problem going on and you're
Speaker 3: talking to someone that you trust, it's okay to of
Speaker 3: course discuss those things right off the top of the conversation.
Speaker 3: But this is on the whole, on the average, what
Speaker 3: are you talking about. Are we just going, oh, I'm stressed,
Speaker 3: I'm tired, I'm exhausted and complaining, or are we sharing
Speaker 3: things that enrich other people's days and let.
Speaker 2: Them have a window into our positive world.
Speaker 4: In the book, you say that negative people are not
Speaker 4: bad people. Our brains can just get stuck. We can
Speaker 4: become really good at finding what's not working and letting
Speaker 4: everyone know. And then you go on to spend a
Speaker 4: fair amount of time talking about how to deal with
Speaker 4: negative people in our lives, and I think that's a
Speaker 4: topic that gets everybody's interest. So can you give a
Speaker 4: couple tips on working with the so called negative people
Speaker 4: in our lives? I like not calling them bad. I
Speaker 4: think that's a great start, But what else?
Speaker 3: Yeah, negative people, That's probably the single biggest question I
Speaker 3: get from people, because you know, they're thinking about at work,
Speaker 3: they're one negative person on their business team that's dragging
Speaker 3: everybody down. Or you know, maybe you come home from
Speaker 3: the office and you're coming home to see your family
Speaker 3: and you're so excited and about something going on, and
Speaker 3: maybe your spouse just kind of reigns on your parade.
Speaker 3: And you know, a lot of times, we really we
Speaker 3: care about these people. We want to help them, and
Speaker 3: so what's the best way to do it. First of all,
Speaker 3: I think the most important thing is to understand that
Speaker 3: it's not the most positive or negative person that wins
Speaker 3: the battle for culture at our companies or in our
Speaker 3: relationships around the dinner table. It's actually the person who's
Speaker 3: most expressive of their mindset. So what that means is
Speaker 3: if you're already positive and optimistic in general, when you
Speaker 3: are in the especially when you're in the presence of
Speaker 3: the negative person, the more that you can be without
Speaker 3: being annoying, expressive of your own positive mindset in a
Speaker 3: meaningful way. That actually can encourage those people to be
Speaker 3: more positive and it helps them see the things that
Speaker 3: are you know, are good in the world. But the
Speaker 3: other thing is, if that person is continually being negative
Speaker 3: and you have tried and tried to help them see
Speaker 3: the light or look at the world in a different way,
Speaker 3: it's okay to take some distance from them. In the book,
Speaker 3: I talk about this idea of taking a strategic retreat,
Speaker 3: which is to you know, take some time to take
Speaker 3: some distance from them and fortify your own positive resources
Speaker 3: by doing those positive habits that we often talk about,
Speaker 3: your gratitudes, exercising, journaling, about meaningful moments, seeing friends that
Speaker 3: bring you up instead of bringing you down. And when
Speaker 3: you feel like you're in a good place and you
Speaker 3: can re engage with them, but have a plan. Don't
Speaker 3: just go in there, right, don't just call up your
Speaker 3: in law who you typically don't get along with on
Speaker 3: the phone.
Speaker 2: Instead, have a plan.
Speaker 3: What could the common conversation look like, How could it
Speaker 3: be short and sweet? What could you say and get
Speaker 3: basically a two minute drill down in place so that
Speaker 3: when you do have that next encounter with them, there's
Speaker 3: at least some sort of framework that can help you
Speaker 3: have a positive, short and sweet experience with them. The
Speaker 3: key is not to, you know, change them entirely and
Speaker 3: change their entire outlook and that conversation, is just to
Speaker 3: have a good experience, which then hopefully will create a
Speaker 3: trajectory of positive experiences with them over time and helps
Speaker 3: you rewrite the social script that exists between you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was thinking about your book earlier. Today. I
Speaker 4: had to have a difficult, somewhat difficult meeting with somebody
Speaker 4: and they came in already mad about something else that
Speaker 4: was happening, and I was like, after reading your book,
Speaker 4: you know, I might want to take a strategic retreat here.
Speaker 4: Unfortunately I needed to have the conversation then, but I
Speaker 4: was able to really think about making sure he was
Speaker 4: de escalated before I went into what I was going
Speaker 4: to talk about.
Speaker 3: That approach is so enlightened because what you're doing is
Speaker 3: you're getting an emotional read on the other person, and
Speaker 3: then you're able to address whatever's happening there before you
Speaker 3: move on to something else. I think that's that really
Speaker 3: takes into account sort of where.
Speaker 2: They're at, but also allows.
Speaker 3: You to move the conversation or the experience into a
Speaker 3: more positive place.
Speaker 4: Yep. I think an older version of myself would have
Speaker 4: recognized that he was upset and then just chosen to
Speaker 4: skip the conversation. So I was happy to have persevered.
Speaker 4: One of the things I really liked that you talk
Speaker 4: about was you say, we need to move our brain
Speaker 4: past its natural focus on what we need to improve
Speaker 4: to what is already working. We accelerate towards growth when
Speaker 4: we have perceived progress, not when we feel we still
Speaker 4: have a long way to go.
Speaker 3: I think that common wisdom suggests that in order to
Speaker 3: create great change in the world, we need to focus
Speaker 3: on all that's broken and figure out how we're going
Speaker 3: to fix it and then and that will finally leave
Speaker 3: us time and resources to then.
Speaker 2: Make our lives great.
Speaker 3: And what we're realizing now is the research shows you
Speaker 3: just really need to focus on the things that you
Speaker 3: can improve but or that are already working, and that'll
Speaker 3: actually fuel you so much more in the long run.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I think that's in line with my experience of
Speaker 4: Negativity can be temporarily useful as a motivator, but positivity
Speaker 4: is a far better motivator and a much more long
Speaker 4: term sufficient one. Most of the big changes I've made
Speaker 4: in my life, there might have been something that kicked
Speaker 4: it off from a negativity perspective, but it was me
Speaker 4: focusing on how well I was doing as I was
Speaker 4: doing it that really gave it the energy to keep going.
Speaker 3: When our brain focuses on progress and you know basically
Speaker 3: the successes we've had and the solutions that we're going
Speaker 3: to use to move forward, that's fuel for the brain
Speaker 3: follow up study that I did with Arianna Huffington and
Speaker 3: Sean We found that if you merely talk about problems
Speaker 3: versus you talk about problems and potential or actual solutions,
Speaker 3: you change other people's brains. In particular, when you pair
Speaker 3: a discussion of solutions with problems, you actually can improve
Speaker 3: other people's creative problem solving on subsequent unrelated tasks by
Speaker 3: twenty percent. So you're making the basically twenty percent smarter,
Speaker 3: and you're improving their mood as significantly as well. So
Speaker 3: you know what that means is that we can talk
Speaker 3: about the negative. We just have to talk about it
Speaker 3: in a different way, and how important it is to
Speaker 3: focus on how far we've come. You know, that's one
Speaker 3: problem that I'm finding with the news right now is
Speaker 3: that oftentimes you can walk away from the news if
Speaker 3: you read too many negative stories with this belief that
Speaker 3: the world is just falling apart. Right It's as if
Speaker 3: the apocalypse is coming, or it's here or whatever. But
Speaker 3: when you look at the stats, there's a completely different picture.
Speaker 3: According to Harvard researcher Stephen Pinker, we are living in
Speaker 3: the safest times in human history when you look at
Speaker 3: war deaths, or number of deaths from infectious diseases, and
Speaker 3: all kinds of other key indicators of quality of life overall.
Speaker 3: So if we think that the world is falling apart, well,
Speaker 3: why would we want to apply our behavior and try
Speaker 3: to make things better? Versus we see, Hey, yes, there's
Speaker 3: lots of things that are left to do to fix
Speaker 3: this world, to make it a better place. But look
Speaker 3: how far we've come. That second viewpoint is much more fueling.
Speaker 4: Amen, I couldn't agree more. I do think that it's
Speaker 4: easy to see things as falling apart. You know, we
Speaker 4: do things two steps forward, one step back, and if
Speaker 4: you're in the middle of that one step back, it
Speaker 4: feels very painful. But if you take a broader time perspective,
Speaker 4: from my perspective, and I've read Stephen Pinker's work, it's
Speaker 4: getting better to be a person than it was in
Speaker 4: the past.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 3: And I know, you know, especially more recently with all
Speaker 3: the you know, all the news that being very, very negative.
Speaker 2: It's just it's so important to remember that as an
Speaker 2: anchor point to help us.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I love the little idea from Voltaire's book about
Speaker 4: tending your own garden. I find that to be such
Speaker 4: a powerful thing to go back to when the negativity
Speaker 4: out in the world feels overwhelming, to sort of stake
Speaker 4: out my little area and say, well, not in here.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I met this incredible woman who I talk about in
Speaker 3: the book. Her name's Sharon, and so we were developing
Speaker 3: a positive psychology program for one of the major big
Speaker 3: box stores. And you know, there's a one point five
Speaker 3: million associates, so you want to make sure to get
Speaker 3: it right before you roll out this program. So we
Speaker 3: went to pilot it and get feedback at a number
Speaker 3: of stores. We get to the store in Memphis and
Speaker 3: I gave our little spiel, and this woman, after the
Speaker 3: morning meeting comes up to us and says, oh, you're
Speaker 3: a happiness researcher. I'm the happiest woman in the world.
Speaker 3: You should study me. And so he said, okay, tell
Speaker 3: me your story, and so she said, well, you know
Speaker 3: I was I waited until later in life to get
Speaker 3: married because you know, I just didn't meet anyone until then.
Speaker 3: But I met this amazing man. And we've been married
Speaker 3: for about six months when my mother dies suddenly of
Speaker 3: health complications, and I was very close to her, and
Speaker 3: so she goes on to tell me that her husband
Speaker 3: was really stuck by her and was this beautiful support
Speaker 3: system all the way through the morning process. And so
Speaker 3: about six months after that, she's finally starting to just
Speaker 3: you know, sort of feel back to normal when he
Speaker 3: gets killed in a car crash. And so I'm looking
Speaker 3: at her and she must you know, I like, I
Speaker 3: can't hide a single emotion. It's always on my face.
Speaker 3: And so she saw that I was confused and didn't
Speaker 3: understand the story and how she could call herself the
Speaker 3: happiest woman in the world, and so she said, well,
Speaker 3: the reason I have the right to is because after
Speaker 3: morning my husband's loss. I got to a point where
Speaker 3: I said to myself, every morning, I have a choice
Speaker 3: of whether or not I can I'm going to choose happiness.
Speaker 3: I have that choice, and it's whether it's up to
Speaker 3: me whether or not I exercise it. And what she
Speaker 3: did was she consciously decided that every day she was
Speaker 3: going to choose to be happy. And moreover, when she
Speaker 3: came into work, she chose to be very open about
Speaker 3: the fact that she had gone through that struggle, but
Speaker 3: she was choosing to be happy. At that point, I
Speaker 3: talked to her coworkers and they said that she was
Speaker 3: the most positive person that they knew by the way
Speaker 3: her power lead was great because she would just say,
Speaker 3: it's a great day, how are you doing right? She
Speaker 3: doesn't even let you get in there and mess it up. Yeah,
Speaker 3: she was just absolutely incredible. But she just she reminded
Speaker 3: me that no matter what's going on in the external world,
Speaker 3: we have that choice internally, and the question is what
Speaker 3: do we decide to do with our finite lifetime and
Speaker 3: our finite resources, and then what kind of impact do
Speaker 3: we want to have on the people around us?
Speaker 4: When you say choosing to be happy, I have a
Speaker 4: little bit of an internal reaction to that as somebody
Speaker 4: who has suffered from depression. And I know a lot
Speaker 4: of listeners also have that feeling. And I don't think
Speaker 4: that's exactly what we're saying, because I don't think you
Speaker 4: can necessarily, at least to me, it doesn't feel like
Speaker 4: I can flip on a happy switch, but I can
Speaker 4: flip on a switch of how I want to view
Speaker 4: the world and what stories I want to give power
Speaker 4: and energy to.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, And I completely understand as well, because when I
Speaker 3: was in my mid twenties, I suffered a year long
Speaker 3: bout with depression. And I know depression is different for everybody.
Speaker 3: For me, I was just I think I was isolated
Speaker 3: and I was so excited the year before I got
Speaker 3: this awesome job in London, I was moving overseas. It
Speaker 3: was like top of the world, right, And then I
Speaker 3: think because I was working from home, I knew no one,
Speaker 3: I had no social life, and I was isolated and
Speaker 3: I'm a very extroverted person in many ways, the whole
Speaker 3: combination didn't jibe. But and so I know I understand
Speaker 3: what it's you can't in those moments oftentimes, you know, say, oh,
Speaker 3: I'm all of a sudden, I'm just happy.
Speaker 2: I just flipped a switch.
Speaker 3: But I think what we can do is we can
Speaker 3: in the midst of those moments, we can still maintain
Speaker 3: an optimistic mindset that things will get better. We can say,
Speaker 3: you know, I know that I have sixteen waking hours,
Speaker 3: and with one of them, I'm going to go to
Speaker 3: the gym and get some exercise because I know that
Speaker 3: it can make a difference. You know, there have been
Speaker 3: studies that show that. Or I'm going to connect with
Speaker 3: friends because you know. For instance, one piece of research
Speaker 3: that I hold close to my heart is the greatest
Speaker 3: predictor of long term levels of happiness that we have
Speaker 3: in the research is our levels of social support. You
Speaker 3: don't have to have a ton of friends, but just
Speaker 3: a handful of meaningful relationships. And if we can stay
Speaker 3: connected to other people, then that can help buffer us
Speaker 3: against depression and just low mood. So if we know that,
Speaker 3: then we say, okay, well, I'm going to consciously try
Speaker 3: to schedule some time with friends to go for a
Speaker 3: walk or to have a meaningful conversation. Those small habit
Speaker 3: changes for me, those that's what walked me out of depression.
Speaker 3: And that's what that's been beneficial for, you know, obviously
Speaker 3: thousands of people. So it's but it's maintaining I think
Speaker 3: that hope and optimism in the midst of that, and
Speaker 3: I think that can be in many many respects.
Speaker 2: That can be a choice.
Speaker 4: I don't know that I think we have a lot
Speaker 4: of control over what emotion we feel, in particular when
Speaker 4: we're particularly in depression. But I do think that we
Speaker 4: have some degree of control over our thoughts and our behavior,
Speaker 4: and I think those can act as levers, at least
Speaker 4: they have for me. By working on my thinking and
Speaker 4: my behavior, I'm able to sort of, you know, using
Speaker 4: a lever, adjust my emotions. You know, I can't do
Speaker 4: it directly, but I have tools that can help.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's so incredible to see, you know, just
Speaker 3: in my own personal life, how how quickly our brain
Speaker 3: can forget how good some of these positive behaviors can
Speaker 3: be for our mood, for.
Speaker 2: How we feel. You know, I have a low mood.
Speaker 3: I'll say, it's exactly the time when I don't want
Speaker 3: to go exercise, right, But even if I just put
Speaker 3: on my sneakers and I go out for a ten
Speaker 3: or fifteen minute walk outside right and nothink strenuous. Oh
Speaker 3: my gosh, all of a sudden, I'm feeling better and
Speaker 3: I forgot. You know, It's like I forgot that that
Speaker 3: would actually be good. The brain is adaptive for good
Speaker 3: and for bad. But you know one other study that
Speaker 3: I often talk about in relation to this, just because
Speaker 3: I think this is so powerful and this is something
Speaker 3: that you don't hear about on the news. There was
Speaker 3: a study done with one of the major antidepressants and
Speaker 3: looked at it in comparison to exercise as a treatment
Speaker 3: for mild depression. And what they found was that for
Speaker 3: so that what they did in the studies, they gave
Speaker 3: one group antidepressants, another group they had them exercise for
Speaker 3: thirty minutes a day, three to five times a week,
Speaker 3: and then the other group they did both. So in general,
Speaker 3: all three groups had sort of equal levels of moving
Speaker 3: out of the depressive state. But what was really remarkable
Speaker 3: was the researchers followed them for two years and the
Speaker 3: group that had exercised were the ones that had a
Speaker 3: thirty nine percent lower relapse rate than the folks that
Speaker 3: had either that had taken antidepressants. So this is not
Speaker 3: a repudiation of antipressants. I think that they serve a
Speaker 3: very valid and important purpose in our society in many respects.
Speaker 3: If that's what your doctor feels, great, But what I
Speaker 3: think is what this is indicative of is that when
Speaker 3: you do a habit that reminds your brain that your
Speaker 3: behavior matters, like getting out the door every day and exercising,
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, you've got that in your toolkit
Speaker 3: and you can go back to it if you need,
Speaker 3: and that can help protect you for experiences later on.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree, one hundred percent. I mean, I have
Speaker 4: I take antidepressants, and they've been a huge help in
Speaker 4: my life, but they are not alone enough. It's like
Speaker 4: it's all those other things. I mean, exercise for me
Speaker 4: is it's really required at this point in my life
Speaker 4: if I want to feel half decent. And so yeah,
Speaker 4: I agree. I love that idea of having a toolkit
Speaker 4: and just going back to it over and over even
Speaker 4: when it's hard.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, Well, thank you so much for the work that
Speaker 4: you're doing. Thank you for coming on the show. I
Speaker 4: really enjoyed reading your book and getting a chance to
Speaker 4: talk with you.
Speaker 3: Oh, thank you for having me, and thanks for the
Speaker 3: work you're doing. You're a positive broadcaster, which is Oh
Speaker 3: that's my big wish for the world. So thank you
Speaker 3: so much. I really appreciate you inviting me on your podcast.
Speaker 4: Okay, excellent, take care, bye bye.
Speaker 1: You can learn more about Michelle Gieland and this podcast
Speaker 1: at oneu feed dot net slash geelan. That's g i
Speaker 1: E l A N, the pace symbol the letter four,
Speaker 1: though not letter four. I'm kidding. I know you'll figure
Speaker 1: it out. If what you just heard was helpful to you,
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