Broadcasting Happiness

The Three Greatest Predictors of Success:

Work Optimism + Positive Engagement + Support Provision.

The book is organized around these three Ideas.

Let’s take a quick look at each of them.

Work Optimism. Are you focused on the positive, energizing aspects of your work or the negative, paralyzing aspects? Michelle tells us it’s all about realistic optimism: “when we are able to take a realistic assessment of the present moment while maintaining a belief that our behavior matters in the face of challenges, we achieve better results at whatever we are doing.”

Do that and you’re a “Visionary Work Optimist” who believes “Good things happen.”

Positive Engagement. The “Engagement Masters” are able to create empowering stories about stress. Rather than getting overwhelmed by stress, they choose to see stress as a challenge rather than a threat—helping to sustain energy over the long run and avoid burnout.

Core belief: “In the face of challenges, I can succeed.”

Support Provision. This is all about how much support you GIVE at work. Research shows that how much support you *give* rather than receive, is the best predictor of your work awesomeness. We want to be “Work Altruists” and cultivate our social support networks by stepping up and lending a hand.

Core belief: “I invest in the success of others.”

Work Optimism + Positive Engagement + Support Provision.

Let’s explore some practical Ideas on how we can bring those qualities to life!

That’s from the first chapter all about “Power Leads.”

As Michelle tells us, in broadcasting, the first story aired is called the “lead.”

Here’s the short story: In any interaction, what we are first exposed to influences our behavior. Psychologists call this “priming.”

Research shows that how we start a conversation predicts how it is likely to turn out. If a conversation starts negatively, it tends to continue negatively. Start it positively, and you’ve primed it for awesome.

So… We want to deliberately practice using power leads.

Here are some examples:

Meetings: Start a meeting with 5 minutes of gratitude or positive stories about progress you and your team have made.

Parents: When you first see your kids after school (or a sports activity/etc.), start by asking them what the best part of their day was.

Email: Start your email with a simple, “Hi NAME! Hope you’re doing great!” then get into whatever you need to discuss.

Power leads. They’re SUPER simple. And equally effective.

P.S. Michelle tells us: “Four-year-olds who were asked to think of a positive memory versus a negative one were 66 percent more efficient at figuring out games involving shapes. The benefits of priming with positivity show up even during the earliest stages of our development!”

P.P.S. Keep this in mind: If you start your day with negative news, the rest of your day tends to follow. <— Research shows this so quit starting your day with negative news!

First, that’s crazy re: Twitter posts being a better predictor of heart attacks than medical questionnaires!

(Whole ‘nother convo but staying off Twitter completely is probably a wise choice for our overall health and well-being. Hah!)

So, what we say to ourselves and to others matters. We want to create a positive lead AND, we want to create positive leading questions.

Here are a few Michelle shares that are worth thinking about now:

When are you at your best?

_______________________________________________________________

What are your greatest strengths?

_______________________________________________________________

What was the best part of your day?

_______________________________________________________________

That’s from a chapter on the importance of “Fact-Checking” any potential negative thoughts in the midst of challenging times. More on that in a moment. First, let’s explore rational optimism a little more.

So, we can be irrationally optimistic and simply ignore anything negative in our reality. That’s, obviously, NOT a good idea.

What we want to do is create RATIONAL optimism.

Check out our Notes on Martin Seligman’s Learned Optimism in which we explore the science of optimism in more detail.

For now, know this: We want to embrace reality (with all its challenges, etc.) while maintaining a positive outlook on the future and the belief that, if we take constructive action, we can create that better future.

So, how we do we cultivate that rational optimism?

This is where fact-checking comes in. Any good broadcaster/journalist needs to fact-check their story before going live with it. As Positive Broadcasters, we need to do the same.

Fact-checking is basically a fun tweak on cognitive behavior therapy we chat about in our Notes on books like Sonja Lyubomirsky’s How of Happiness and Albert Ellis’s Guide to Rational Living. (And kinda like Byron Katie’s Work in Loving What Is.)

We don’t ignore any negative thoughts or challenges, but we DO hold them up to some fact-checking. Michelle walks us through a process that includes isolating our stressful thought, listing the facts we know, then listing what she calls “fueling facts” that illuminate a new story.

I love the idea of fueling facts—basically, reinterpretations that provide FUEL to our fire of awesome rather than diminishing our power.

Here’s a personal example. When I decided to pivot our business from the big uber-Academy with hundreds of professors and multiple complex objectives to a simpler model with me as the primary teacher focused on ONE Thing, the “facts” of the situation weren’t all great. I’d raised $2 million from dear friends and family who were counting on me; we were taking our revenue from $1 million to $0 while letting down a ton of partners + our team, etc. Etc. Etc. Etc.

(Even typing that I feel stressed. :0)

All of those facts were true and needed to be taken head on. And… The FUELING facts needed to be present as well. The fact that ALL great businesses go through challenging pivots and that failure is inherently part of the learning process. The fact that it often takes great stress to catalyze great performance (no pressure no diamonds!) and that I had the choice to alchemize the experience however I wanted.

By adding the fueling facts to the story (while not ignoring reality), I created a rational optimism and a sense of anti-fragility—in which the challenges LITERALLY fueled my growth and made me (and the biz) stronger much like how Nassim Taleb tells us that wind extinguishes a candle and fuels a fire.

How about you?

What’s challenging you these days?

Identify the stressful thought. Look at the facts. See the fueling facts.

Here’s to rational optimism and anti-fragile trust in ourselves to get a little stronger as we create a better future for ourselves while meeting challenges head on!

P.S. As I typed out that goodness on rational optimism it made me think of Gabrielle Oettingen’s work on effective visualization (see Notes on Rethinking Positive Thinking).

Irrational visualization is when we ONLY focus on our positive fantasy for the future—ignoring any potential challenges/obstacles.

<— That, of course, is NOT A GOOD IDEA. (Again, research is unequivocal.)

RATIONAL visualization, on the other hand, starts with our positive fantasy about a better future but doesn’t end there. After soaking up all the good vibes of our Wish being fulfilled and the benefits we’ll experience from that Outcome, we rub our fantasies up against reality. We imagine the Obstacles that might get in the way of attaining that vision and then we see the Plan that’ll help us navigate the process.

WOOP. That’s the secret sauce of rational visualization. It works. <— Let’s do that.

H.A.L.T!

That’s from a chapter on “Strategic Retreats” in which we see the wisdom in taking a step back from conflict/a negative person when the situation demands it.

Scenarios in which we’d be wise to step back strategically?

When we are either HUNGRY or ANGRY or LONELY or TIRED.

H.A.L.T.

Another personal example: If you plotted every single argument Alexandra and I have ever had over the last 9+ years, you will clearly see that one or both of us was rockin’ the HALT.

The really impressive fireworks occur when we’re *both* HALTy. (Hah!)

My hunch is you’ll see the same pattern in your relationship(s) if you stepped back and took a look. So, let’s explore for a moment…

When do you tend to stay in conversations that spiral down into Ickyville? When you’re hungry? Angry? Lonely? Tired? (My top 2 are definitely hungry + tired. You? :)

Remember to HALT the next time you’re on a downward spiral. To the fundies!! :)

Love and beauty are all around us.

We must make the choice to see it.

And then broadcast it. Day in and day out.