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Cultivate Luck

All right. Welcome today. Number eight. Take a seat. My ladies, hopefully at home. You're doing a little dancing Warm up with us. Welcome today Number eight, our lucky Jack. So today is a mindset Day, which means we're gonna be leveraging the power of our perspective before I get into that. Let's talk about where we've been, what we've learned so far. So on our first day, we did our chart of happiness. I had us engage the Tetris effect On day number two. I had a striving to our skills and our mastery areas. On date number three A had us place storm And think of our favorite play activities. Day four, we controlled. We minimize the bad things and maximized the good things. On day number five, we wowed. We talked about the five stages of wow, set up some good rituals on day number six. You learned your G spots gratitude and given ing giving hopeful. You have ah, gratitude. Totem may be a cause champion you're thinking about and on day number seven, we started talking about our community.

Or are Singa today? Here. My goals. I want to talk about a jack now a Jack is what lifts up a car to change a tire. And when I was thinking about when I was reading all these studies study after study about perspective and the power that they have, it made me think of this little tiny tool that can lift an entire car. And I feel like what we're gonna learn today seems like a really small thing, a really simple mindset trick. However, the power is huge, and so I call it, are lucky, Jack, because I feel like it can lift up so much. Even though it's a really small trick and tip, I believe this is a secret happiness lover. I don't think we think about mindset a lot. We're thinking about happiness. This is also about our expectations. So we're thinking about what makes us happy. It's we accept ourself up for happiness by what happens before a happy event similar to anticipation, but a little bit different. And lastly, we're gonna be working from the inside out. So starting with mindset to change our actions and behavior, of course, we're gonna start off with a warm up. Our warm up today is I want us to start thinking about harnessing and honing our luck. I want to ask you and you at home, please take out your workbook and turn to Pillar number eight. You're lucky, Jack, and I want you to think about what is the luckiest thing that ever happened to you. And we don't often think about our lives in terms of luck. But I want to do that right now. So in the audience, the luckiest thing that's ever happened to be in the small big. Yes, When I was in college, I was in a Thurman in thermodynamics class and a boy didn't know before class came up to me. He knew my name and he asked me a question about the homework. Oh, it s so, um I thought, Oh, this is a little interest, all of pursue. And so I sat next to him in a in a math class that we're in together. And it just so happened that the seat that I sat there is no science eats that The seat that I sat in on them, that math class happened to be where my now husbands what, and so they because they were friends, they were fraternity brothers So the guy who asked you the question actually, he just got you closer. Yeah. Yes. And so I sat and his my husband see, And my husband went, who was sitting in my seat and he said that I had him at my first I roll way probably never would have. It's like talked otherwise had it not fun for that. God, that is such a good That's a crossroads moments, right? That's a really big last moment. Any other lucky times finding something like a yet this is a small one CB smalling. But it sticks out in my mind because it was just random. Look, um, I was in class one day and there was a person that was demo ing like art supplies. And so at the end, they were doing giveaways. And you write your name down and they draw it out of the hat. And so the first bunch were just, you know, like sketchbooks. And when the sketchbooks and one's a pencil, the last prize was completely impractical and silly. But is this giant inflatable marker on? Then for some, for some reason, I was like, I think I'm gonna win this marker For some reason, I like that inflatable Marjorie that is gonna be for me. And they pulled my name out of the hat and I won. I was, like, so happy about. Okay, so these moments, So we talk about a lot about good, positive memories. I also want anything about lucky memories, because our luck is we're gonna learn is actually incredibly important. This talks about the power of perspective. Now I want to share a really interesting study about perspective. This was a study that looked at Olympic athletes what they did as they wanted to know who is happier silver or bronze medalists. Now, this actually should be a not. You shouldn't even be a question, right? A gold should be the happiest than silver than bronze, right? That's usually how it goes. But they had a hypothesis that it actually wouldn't be the case. In fact, bronze medalists are typically happier than silver medalists. Why? Because of what they have to compare. Silver medalists are comparing what they could have had, which is the gold. Bronze medalists are comparing silver, but they're also comparing the option of no metal at all right? And so they feel lucky to be standing up there, toe, have a metal at all where silver feels like I could have that metal. Or it could have that metal. This is the power of perspective, right? Any Olympic athletes should be excited about being there. Any meddling athletes should be excited, but sometimes it's not always the most obvious things that make us feel the happiest. So that's what I want to talk about today. This is called expectation. Assimilation. This is a concept. We're talking about a lot, that our exit expectations change our reality. They change our action, they change their behavior and they actually change. Our performances were gonna be learning about in a study that have to do with newspaper photos. I mentioned this study the very, very beginning on day one, and I have to repeat it cuts one of my favorites. That's about strawberry yogurt or chocolate yogurt. They brought participants into a dark room. They asked them to rate strawberry yogurt aunts flavor. 59% of the participants rated the yogurt as having a really nice strawberry flavor. However, yogurt was actually chocolate, and that is because people expected to taste strawberry and therefore their brain told them it was strawberry, even though it was actually chocolate. I also like this anecdote, which, um, this was came from the book Elite Mines, which I love. And basically, it talked about how, in 1954 it was believed impossible to run a mile under four minutes. We thought it was physically impossible for humans to run a mile that fast. Then Roger Bannister did it in three minutes and 59 seconds. Within weeks of Roger Bannister breaking that barrier, dozens of other athletes also began to break it. What this shows us is that if we're told, Oh, you can't run a four minute mile, our brain doesn't even try, right actually sets up a berry. We set up a barrier for ourselves, based what we think we can and can't do. But the moment someone else does it first, we're like, Oh, we can know. So today I want to tell you that you can all run faster than four minute miles, right? Whatever it is you've been thinking about doing or you've been wondering, Can I do that? That's not the question. The question is, should I right? Is that part of my designed life. You can do anything you want. The question is, does it fit into the trajectory, the goals you have for your life? This is one final study I want to share on the power of expectations. I'm trying to show you how in our brain fits expectations with taste. Our brain fits exhortations with the physical abilities of our body and also sets expectations with our age. So this is a study that was done by Ellen Langer, one of my favorite researchers. Here's what she did. It was very clever. In 1979 she took a group of 75 year old men, and she brought them to a kind of campus that she devised. It was a single floor of Ah, I think was a living, nursing home or facility, and she told the 75 year old men. But for one week they had to pretend that they were 50 again on what she did in the floor of this dormitory is she got newspapers from the from, um so it was. They were 75. It was 15 years earlier. She got newspapers from that time period. She only played music from that time period. She got television shows from that time period she got. She made them all dress in clothes from that era. She made recipes that were cool during that era, and they lived in this wing that was converted into 1959. I think it was actually not 20 years, so it had to have been a little bit 1960. I'm so better math before I think 1964 after one week, when they were measured again on dexterity, their arthritis pain, their cognitive abilities, their eyesight, their hearing, all of those things improved. So the beginning of the week they brought all these men and they said, You know, let's do a vision test. Let's do a hearing test One week later, after pretending they were 50 they improved on all of those tests. So there is something about our expectations that can change our ability. One other little interesting part of this experiment that I didn't include is they also took pictures of the men right before they walked in the facility and right after, and they showed strangers these pictures and they most of the strangers raided the picture That was the week later as a younger picture of that same man when they were asked which picture is younger, even it was only a week. Different people actually thought that that man in the same clothes was younger. So our expectations are hugely powerful. They truly are a jack that can lever up a lot. 0 63% increase their I Q. I mean, it is insane, right? By the way, I would love to spend a week pretending that I was 15. I think that would be really, really fun. I like have jelly pens like we listen to boy bands. Maybe that's a that's a camp that I might create actually a new kind of aging, right? Just come and pretend you're a teenybopper. So this is actually called something that is kind of prime ing. So it's predictive and coating. That's the fancy word for it, which is basically that when we prime are ourselves have a favorable outcome, we actually have prepares our brain to make that outcome come true. So if you tell the brain you're gonna perform really well today, you're going to run really fast. You're gonna look really young the brains like, Oh, we better act in the way. We better change physiology somehow to actually make that come true. So I want us to leverage that for our benefit. I'm curious so you can get your red and green cards out at home. I want you to answer this question. I actually want you to think about the answer, this question. I think you're either looking or you're waiting, and so there's not a wrong here. I just want you to think about what? Where you fall. Do you typically look for opportunities or you waiting for opportunities? Which one do you think you fall in love to see? Okay. Interesting. And by the way, if you don't know that, Thank you. Perfect. So you don't know the answer at home and you can raise to I mean, this is something really interesting for us to think about, because this has to do with our lucky Jack, right? I think either were in a active state. We're out there looking to change. We're trying to change. Were saying You know what? I think I can run a four minute mile, and I'm gonna push myself to do it or were saying I'm gonna let the world tell me what I can and can't do or I'm going to see what opportunities air happening and then I will take it. It's a very, very different way of thinking. We're gonna get into that with the growth mindset in a second. Of course, I I love this quote. We often say, when opportunity comes a knockin right? But actually, that's awaiting state right, waiting for opportunity to knock. It means you're waiting on the other side of the door for the world to knock it. You And so Tracy Morgan has this joke. When opportunity knocks, you should let it in, invited to sit down at your table f that I take it captive. I got opportunity tied to a chair in my basement's, which is a very active one. So I ask you, Are you waiting for opportunity to knock on the door or do you have it locked captive in your basement? So let's take out your workbook and let's do a little bit of a luck bomb. A luck bomb is how I'm going to start prime ing your brain to see more luck opportunities. So in your notebook. What I want us to do is I want to think about this is more than just luck. Now. These are more than just moments of luck. Was there a time during your personal life, your career, your social life were you felt like an unexpected opportunity completely changed the trajectory of your life. And the reason for this is because I think that as adults, we like to think that everything is planned, right? We have a business plan, We have a life path, we have a school path. We even in the beginning of school, we set out all of our classes in a row. But a lot of the time our life does not usually follow that trajectory. And looking back, we don't always acknowledge that Maybe that was a good thing, right, that maybe going off track a little bit, going off path and having unexpected opportunities served us really well. So I want to highlight those moments at home. I want to think about if there was one or maybe even two opportunities and anyone willing to share a unexpected opportunity that chance factory. Yes, I've been finished. I finished a contract position with, like, my job and didn't really have a plan for what was gonna come next. Yeah. So I happened to have lunch with a friend who was going travelling. And then I ended up spending the next three months in Southeast Asia and then a month in New Zealand before coming back and because I fell in love with having so much control over my own time. Yeah. Since then, I didn't go back to the corporate job I had before, and I consultant now, and I work on my own schedule. So because of that one trip, it showed you that you actually were much happier without having that corporate schedule. Wow, that would last me to do things like come to San Francisco when I need to. Yes. Wow, that was a really good total trajectory change. You raised your hand. I love to hear Yes, um, I had opportunity, but I really felt like to go work in a summer camp and they said we have no jobs were hard for the summer. And I said, I need to work here and bothered them. Basically, Every day for three weeks, I've called Hustle, not bothering. Absolutely got my hustle on. And they're like how we found your job in the only job they had was cleaning, huh? Night crew, cleaning toilets, mopping floors, changing beds. The works which got me around to all parts of the camp, which got me a job the next year. Working in the mail room, which got me a job next year working in a different part of camp, introduced me to a photographer that I met up with a gazillion years later when I got laid off from teaching and started my photography business. Wow, other connections. And it all started out with scrubbing toilets, making beds. Yeah, and hustle muscle and unexpected opportunity. Oh, God. OK, so these are the stories that I think we should be sharing more often. A lot of the time when you read autobiographies of here, entrepreneurs speaker, successful business people speak. They usually will talk about a path of some kind. They usually don't talk about these sort of happenstance moments, and so when you sit down to work on your business plan or your five year plan, it can be a plan. But have it be a suggestion because sometimes that's you telling yourself you could only run four minutes, right? Yes. Trying to cheerless Sony. I had an opportunity to report to a boss for four months, and that was a very negative opportunity. But in the course of that four months, I found you and you gave me strength and I found strength. I found hope. And that opportunity helped me a turn. That opportunity to a positive opportunity. So I'm much happier on positive, I'm sure. In San Francisco, I found a really great job, great boss and all my friends. I'm also another luckiest thing that I found was I must have encouraged to ask one of the greatest mentor to be my mentor. So yeah. So Jennifer made me cry at the very beginning of our class off camera because Jennifer said that in this horrible four months you were Googling right. You tubing confidence or body language tips and randomly found me two videos. And now, hopefully are gonna be a trainer for us and unexpected luck. And I feel like I'm the lucky one in that Jennifer, just wait. I'm gonna work you hard during our training program in January, so Okay, No crying. Jennifer Okay, So wait a whole day. So I want us to start thinking about when you're think when I'm talking about long term planning and your legacy, make sure you give yourself some flexibility and do predictive and coating. Let's talk about some science. So this is simply the question. Are you lucky? So don't want to answer it just yet. When I ask you, Are you lucky? That's actually a form of predictive encoding because your brain says either? Oh, yeah, you are. Or I don't think so. Or am I. So the answer. This question actually affects how you behave. So in this study, they ask people, Are you lucky? Then they gave them a newspaper and they had them. They asked them to count the number of images in the newspaper, so they had them flip to the newspaper. However, at the very top of the second page, with a little note that said actually wasn't that little was kind of a rather big no inwards said, stop counting. There are 43 photos. Very simply. They found that when people said they thought they were lucky, they rated themselves high on luck. They were much more likely to see this and stopped counting where the people who said they were unlucky were more likely to miss this and spend 20 minutes counting and recounting all the photos for the price. So luck is not just about what happens in the future. It's also about our current behavior. Again, I always think, Are we looking or are we waiting? Right. So this brings me to the solution for today. You're lucky, Jack, which is cultivating your luck and letting opportunities come to you. So this is yes. You want those opportunities to come. You want to be waiting. But it's also about doing the right work up front, doing a little bit of hustle, a little bit of cultivating. There's actually three steps today, a little bit of ah, a longer process. I couldn't There was so many disparity studies, but they all were saying that basically the same thing that I decided to break your lucky Jack. In the three different areas, the 1st 1 is growth driven, so harvesting growth. So I talked actually in Master people skills a little bit about the growth mentality, but I want to talk about it again today first I have a quick quiz for us. This is actually I have the full quiz. I believe, um, I have the full quiz on inter virtual toolbox. So we have the full growth mindset quiz at that science google dot com slash 21 if you want to take it. But I want us to take it here together. So how many of you believe you have a certain amount of intelligence and you can't really do much to change it? So one is disagree. Five is agree. And if you want to hold up your fingers for me, I would love to see how you rate this. A lot of low numbers. 231 Okay, remember your number, by the way. Next question. You can learn new things, but you can't really change your basic skills. Hold up your numbers. One disagree? All right, A lot of low numbers. Okay, next one. You either have a natural talent for something, or you don't. It's hard to change your aptitude. We feel about this one. Couple more twos. Okay, So these were the 1st 3 questions in a growth mindset quiz which basically looks at Do you feel that our abilities are changeable or not. Doctor Doctor Carol Dweck Wonderful book on mindset, and she has done incredible research on how our mindset affects our behaviour very, very briefly. So growth mindset is that our intelligence, talents and skills can be improved where those of us who have the fixed mindset believe we're born with a certain innate intelligence set of talents and skills that cannot be changed. Here's the thing about growth mentality, and luckily, our mentalities can be changed. We don't have just one mentality. We can change it over time. Hopefully, today I'm going to convince you that you should adopt the growth mentality if you don't already have it. People with the growth mentality have lower levels of depression. They typically earn 57% more in salary negotiations. By the way, I think that has everything to do with that four minute mile. I think that if you have a fixed mentality, you say Well, my salary last year was $30,000 according to salary dot com, my website my my earnings this year should be $32,000. Therefore, I'm going to give them a range of 32 $33,000. That's very fixed, right where some of the growth mentality says, Well, sure, I earn $30,000. But you know what? I've gained some new skills. I feel like this cos bigger. I'm gonna shoot a little bit higher. I'm gonna ask for a higher one, right? That's a different way of looking at our skills are adaptable or if they're set in stone. And lastly, people with growth mentality typically report higher satisfaction in all of their relationships. Romantic as well as friendships. A couple other things about growth and fixed. This is, I think, the most important part of this mentality, and it's how we look at wrong answers. So in the Columbia Brainwave lab, they gave participants a quiz, a kind of mathematical intelligence quiz. And they put them into an M. R. I machine. And they had someone on the speaker in the m r I machine telling the participants which questions they got wrong or right what was interesting. Waas is during the wrong answer explanations. So when someone said OK, you got number three wrong. You said that it was Ah, hi, pot news. Actually, it was a right I don't know if the other answer is to that. Um, so people with a fixed mindset that quiz I gave you had less activity in their brain. Where is people with a growth mindset Had more activity in their brain. What I think this indicates is that if you have a growth mindset and you know you got something wrong, you made a mistake. You look at that mistake and you say, I'm gonna learn from this. Would you have fixed mentality? You say? Well, mistake is just part of my DNA. I was I was gonna make that mistake. There's nothing I can do about it. And so we shut down during mistakes That also makes the mistake more permanent. If you have a fixed mentality and you think your mistake was a part of you, you were going to feel worse about that. Wrong answer. Where have you Here? You had a wrong answer, and you're like, Okay, well, how would I have figured that out? It was a hypothesis hypothesis. Interesting. Then you don't attribute that mistake to you. You attributed to something that you can learn and change. That is how I think we talk about mistakes and self confidence. Mistakes versus failures, right? That's the difference between the two. So when you look at the two, you see that fixed mindsets tend to say things like this. I'm a failure. They typically will wait for the perfect mate. They have a lot of dealbreakers when it comes to relationships, they say. I can't do it. They typically shift blame and they like to hire yes people, whereas growth mentality, they use a little bit of a different language. They'll say I failed at this. They recognize a really good relationship and don't want it to be perfect. But say, Let's try to grow together there. I can learn to do it. I can change to do it They typically hire better people and they try to excel in many different areas. The further we harvest or cultivate that growth mindset, the better off we are and the less bad we feel about mistakes we make. So I'll be curious now that I talk about this now, not now, but for most of your life. Do you think you've had a growth or fixed mindset for most of your life? Little mix. Okay, I also had a very fixed mindset. Growing up, I had to work really hard and changing to a growth mindset. The good news is we can change our mind set and that's what we're going to be doing today. That's part of this predictive encoding. Again, I had that full growth test for you on my website. If you're not sure, if you're at home and you're like, I think I'm growth, but I'm not sure there is an official test from Carol Dweck on our website. It's totally free. So how do we harness the growth mentality? Specifically, I've heard the growth mentality concept a lot before, but I never quite knew what were the tactical things I could do to get a growth mentality. I'd be like, Sure, I wanna learn. So I think the best way to harness the growth mentality is with learning and luckily already in this class already starting that because learning is so good for us in so many ways, it brings lots of growth. It helps us feel less stuck. It helps us hit flow from positive psychology and why it's because it introduces the concept of I can do more in Sangha Day seven. We talked about I belong and how that's a really powerful phrase. I think the next most powerful phrase might be this one. The feeling of I can do more than this. I can run faster, I can read more, I can earn more. That is an incredibly empowering feeling, and that produces dopamine and endorphins. Learning is another pleasure making activity. So what I want us to do is I want us to create our learning bucket list. So we talk a lot. You hear a lot about bucket lis. Right? And bucket lists are great, but I think all of us in our lives should have things. We want to learn about things, skills. You wanna learn things we want to try. So what I want us to do is think about what are the different skills or ideas you want to try, and especially if we can tap into mastery area. So is there a skill on your skill chart that you read? And maybe you gave it a two or three, but you really wished you were a four or five, or was there a four on your skill chart that you really wish could be a five, right? So I want to go back to your mastery charter as part of your homework, and I want you look at those skills and see which one. Do you want to flip up into another one? Because I think, yes, we have natural talents that we were born with. But I also think that we can create natural talents if we want them, and that skilled chart is not permanent. That's the good news is that when you re take this class in a year and I do want you to rewatch day Number two, I want that skill tart to be different. I want your numbers to change with skills you learned or adopted or rediscovered or discovered for the first time. Of course, your happiness chart in your place storming area also might tap into learning, especially in the openness category. There was classes I suggested are things you might want to learn, so I'm very curious of the audience. Is there something that you have been wanting to learn is there's a couple of one or two things that you want to add to your learning bucket list right off the top of your head. Yes. Um so mine on my chart is communication. I even three. Okay. Yeah. And so I think part of it is verbalization. Um, if I'm trying to get a point across getting better at that, it's I know. Can I call you out on this over? I know, I know, I know, I know, I know. No, you don't know. I know. S So this is where I feel like I'm segmented. Okay? I feel like like here, it's very natural. And it also feels like you're asking me the questions providing you value because they wanted for right? Yes, that's true. When I don't necessarily get that, like, outwardly affirmative. I want this from you. Yes, is Then I have a block, and I okay, that my too much So just knowing that is very helpful. So does that happen also, when you're teaching, like, do you feel like that's something that happens when you're teaching. Also, if someone has given me that, I want you to teach me better than that. I'm fine. I'm great. And I feel like my teaching skills are high. But if I haven't gotten that so, for example, on my business page. I think I want to doom or like Facebook lives. Uh huh. And that terror like that terrifies me. Um, and so that's something that I think so. But I don't get it. I'm still going to challenge you on this one. Are you ready? So I actually think that you're a four or five on communication. What? You're talking about his confidence. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. So it's actually you know how to communicate. You know what? You know You know, you how to help people. So it's not a communication piece. It's a confident. It's good. I appreciate. Right. So, like, that is strong. We have to work on Is knowing your worth, right, that people would want to watch a Facebook life from you. That's totally different than you having an awesome Facebook life right now. That's a wholly different issue. Yes. So then, for the learning part, Yeah, learning. I mean, I think that learning how to have a Facebook live like learning how to know your worth to know that you're going to deliver a really awesome one. Yes, right. So that could be following people who do really great. Facebook lives, right doing couple informational interviews looking at block post, writing your own blawg post. I mean, I would be very interested. I do. A couple Facebook lives there. Okay? Right. And I'm not, like, great at them, but I would be so interested toe read about your journey, learning how to perfect your Facebook lives, right? Like I've done a couple here and there. I like, turn it on, everyone smile on my makeup Looks good. And I'm like, Let's talk about something, you know what I mean? So I would love to be like, I've never done a Facebook life. Here's all the research I did Here's what I learned Here were my 1st 3 experiments, right? I got this money views this many comments and this money likes on it. My goal is to have 500 likes 500 views. Here's what I did to tweak it. Then we started getting better than I added. That right like that in itself would be both an experiment which is a little scary and an amazing learning bucket list opportunity. And I would so read and share that post which I will if you decide to share. If you decide to share it. And you uninstalled your app yesterday, right? Yes. Okay. Okay. Anyone else I can attack just really quickly. E like to work on social intelligence, Especially at work. I'm, like, in a position to bid lots of relationship, and sometimes I don't know quite how, because it's not directly related to my work. But if I have a better relationship with this people, the flow of or goes like better for everybody, it's everything can I give to my master people's classroom. Okay, I'm going to give it to you as a gift afterwards because it changes everything. I totally agree. Communication team and loyalty. Learning. Yeah, I'm gonna give that too soon as this course is done. Thank you. Yeah, no problem asking. You shall receive my friends. Any other learning, learning things that people really can be something small to write. Making sushi? Yeah. One small thing. Yeah, I want to go dancing. Oh, yes. And what kind of an thing? I didn't know. I used to dance in like when I was a Keith. But yesterday after the class, I was on the bus stop and listening to see us songs, and I cut myself like, um, then Hey, maybe I should consider to look up for some classes soon. I love it. So that is on a the inner kid, right? You used to dance. Maybe you liked it. Then it's a little bit playful. And also you were doing the Tetris effect, right? You're on the bus. You found yourself dancing. You're like, Oh, look, I'm dancing, and I like that. That is the Tetris effect in action. Right? When you're looking for things to make you happy, all the sudden things like you realize you're doing them all sudden. Yes. So at home, I hope that these answers inspired you a little bit. I want you to create your learning bucket list 5 to 10 to 15 items, and I want you to do small you can. You really small things. I also want you to think really big. Like if you had 15 years to learn something, What would you learn if you had five days to learn something? What would you learn? If you have five minutes to learn something, what would you learn? That's the kind of thing I want to think about for your learning bucket list. that's going to number two progress driven. It's the other hidden lever. Hidden Jack of Happiness is about progress, and we don't think about progress that much. But the power of small winds is tremendous. Here's a study that I want to talk about both. They found that progress is a better motivator than financial incentives, compliments or rewards. And this is crazy For a second. Let's say that you have a teenager and you want them to clean their room. Most adults would say, I'll offer them allowance for it. I'll punish them for it. I'll give them compliments on their clean room. Are those the ones that usually come to mind? Actually, science has. The best thing you can do is when they do clean their room is to indicate how far they've come, right, so instead of will come in the room and being like, Oh, your bed still isn't done. You're actually better off looking in the room, being like, Wow, I'm so glad you put away the dishes right? That's what science says actually activates us more or progress. Harvard Business Review's The way they figure this out, by the way, is they analyzed 26 different corporate teams. This was over 238 people, and they had them fill out journal entries. So every day each of those people in the studies had to fill out a journal entry about their feelings and their tasks that day. They were looking for a bunch of different things. What they found Waas. Is it on people's best mood days, the days where people were like, Yeah, I felt great Today. 76% of them had some kind of small progress. Something completed, a task that was finished. And on 13% of those days, a setback happened. What they're saying here is that any kind of progress, although we might not realize it is what contributes to those good moods, that little bit of progress, even finishing the smallest part of a task slowly triggers an upward spiral. And so progress is actually huge thing that we don't think about. In fact, I believe they are catalysts. I believe any kind of small completion or progress. We don't capitalize on them because we don't realize how powerful they are for upward spiral. So here's my question. Do you have any or enough progress indicators in your life. Now, this is kind of an interesting question. Do you have things in your life where they indicate that you've made movement forward Any anything part of your head? Yeah, It's called productive. Uh huh. And I can put in things like Did I make my bed this morning? Did I make plans with a friend? Did I do some reading? It's called Productive. Called Productive. OK, so this app, I'm sure, is based on the science were even these little motivators can help us see our progress. What I want to do is capitalize on these small wins. Here's just some ideas, right? If you're like progress indicators, what here is that? I mean first, so many of us do not celebrate, right? We do not celebrate even the big things, let alone the little things. So how do you remember the last time you achieve something little on your jewels? And you were like, Yeah, Yeah, like we don't do that very often. So I think that getting in the habit of some many celebrations with our to do lists is actually really important. Second. So how do you celebrate? By the way? I wanted to ask you guys at home when you have a celebration. What do you dio with the loud music? And do you actually celebrate? Yeah. Good are right. Any other celebrations? Yeah, for a little small things. I'll do a little squeal. A big dinner person, right? So any excuse to go its nice dinner? I'm usually out for a nice dinner. That's usually what I dio any other many celebrations. So you should know the answer to this question. Right? So I want you to write this down. If you don't know the answer right away to this question in your workbook, I want you to write down all at least three or four ways that you have many celebrations. Not the big ones, the little ones. The 2nd 1 is a little bit more practical. So I call this the Russian to do list. This is how I do my to do list. And I wanted to introduce this idea to you. So this is both a productivity's tip and a happiness to most of us. When we think about making our to do list is we write down like right blawg, post finish report and they're quite big du Lafayette and usually 2 to 3 hours long. So what I usually do is I have, and I actually wrote these for us ahead of time is I actually do my to do list on flash cards. I have different piles of different colors and on my desk usually I have three or four piles on the top of this one. It says Right block post. So I know that this is I'm going to procrastinate on this one, right? It's just too big. I don't even know where to start. So what I do is I create what I call the Russian doll to do list. No Russian doll has, like, things of them things. So I put this actually on the bottom of the list and then I start with really, really small tasks. The first thing I do is research topics, right? That's all I have to dio and when? As soon as I'm done with it, I throw away the card right and the card is done, which also feels really good, like this. Like this. Track her, I feel so I'll clean that up later, right? Like even like that, Like I have, like a thing. And look, I put it anything and I'm like, Yeah, right. Like, that's a little celebration for me. The next one is due keyword research on my block post. Um, outline right next one. That one's easy. Get studies on my block post usually have some kind of researcher studies. Then I have right, That's a big one. And that's the hardest. Actually, once already, have your outline, your studies. It's actually quite easy. Make images. So we make a bunch of social media images. I promise. I'll Cumana um because I make my images. Then I do my tagging. I tag my posts, all my keywords. Then I have This is actually my real to do list scheduled social, so I usually will schedule my post on schedule. All my Edgar and Buffer Post got all across social media on. The last one is right. Blood posts I could be like on usually. By the way, my right block post is a different color. So this is usually pink, my big one. So I know what I'm getting close to pink. And then when I get the pink one, I get to actually celebrate like it's more than just like a I put clearings up later, okay? Yes, you said you get to actually celebrate. What does that look like? Okay, so usually it's a meal, especially at the end of the day, right? It's usually a little meal. Maybe I'll go to a dance class. I love rock climbing, so I have, like a lot, but they're a little expensive. So all I call one of my friends to go rock climbing. But it's not the cheapest not home membership, like that's a little treat for me. Um, so many things. A pumpkin spice lattes, a like like I have, like, a lot of little things that I dio and I don't do them willy nilly. So, like, Yes, of course I could go get a pumpkin spice lattes. Hey, whenever I want. But I typically will save those things as like the reward for the pink flash card. Typically. So I wanted to actually do this with someone. Can you tell me something on your to do list? I wanna have you actually write it down for me. So what's something on your to do list after this course? Yes. What will be taking care of my house cleaning my house. Okay, so right. Cleaning your house on that 1st 1 Okay. Great. Nice and big. Okay, So if I saw that on my to do list, by the way, that would, like be pushed down and down and down. Okay. So what's a little thing that you could do for cleaning your house? Like, Very like, first thing, even like getting cleaning supplies? Yes. Getting back and right. It's like getting cleaning supplies, right? Like, bring hauling out the vacuum. I don't know about you, but my vacuum is like in the back of, like, the back of a back of a closet, right? Getting in the vacuum getting exactly, um Okay. What else? We could we pick a just like a small part of your house to start with? Yes. Um uh, kitchen. Smaller swelling in the kitchen bathroom. Well, I meant, like in your kitchen. What small? Oh, looked by Starlight clean kitchen. I'd be like It's like dishes first. Dishes like just dishes like that's, like, really short, right? Just dishes. And by the way, every time you finish this right or use the app right, and like I hope it sings for you or something when you get a little love. Like, exactly good to the living is great. Eso dishes. What else in the kitchen? Countertops, countertops, wipe down countertops. I like it. And by the way, you know these, right? Like, the purpose of this is not because you don't know it because it engages in the power of those small winds, and you start to get the upward cycle turns cleaning the house. One lousy card in tow like, yeah, yeah. Look, I'm cleaning the houses right with next. Um so clean the counters. Clean dishes are done. Microwave. Uh, you clean out your microwave? Yeah. Four idea. No idea. Floors. Oh, gosh. The dogs. Yeah. Uh, yes. Clean forest floors. Yes. So I'm gonna give you a couple of these, and I want to start pulling them out until you get your whole house done. Give you all this way. Like that also means it helps you chunk your to do list. Right? Because if you only get three of them done. Great. You're three of the dump. The rest day, Otherwise, and this is the This is the worst anti happy making activity. You start cleaning your house and you do a lot of work on it, but you don't finish, and you still can't check it off your list. It feels like the never ending task when you have those cards were like older. The stat got shorter, right? I'm a little bit closer to pink or have your top card is. So that's what I call the Russian doll to do list. I'm also a huge fan of scoreboard, so this is professionally or tours. If you have toward charts with kids, if you want in a team, I highly highly recommend you add metrics to your team. So one thing that we didn't used to do at times people is we didn't I didn't track a lot of our metrics in terms of like YouTube followers, YouTube views. Facebook followers likes most popular posts because I didn't want to. I like community. How can you measure community? But the reason why it's actually important to have some of those measurements is purely because it gives you the opportunity tohave small winds. So we now track all over metrics. We have a big chart. Whenever we get that, we sit down once a month to do, start, stop, continue. Everyone owns a metric. It's like Robbie's in charge of YouTube, and our goal is 100, subscribers and 10 million views where I think 90, subscribers and eight million views. So we're like, very, very close. And every time he's like Oh, look, we got 50,000 right? Like we're so close. So he owns that number. Then we have email, subscribes Twitter followers, Facebook followers. And we check those numbers religiously on that and that actually lets us engage in wins. And we get YouTube actually gives us a plaque if we had 100,000 subscribers, so we're really going for that big win. Last one is easy. Make any decision at all, so we don't think about decisions as a celebration. But actually, our brain loves to make decisions. And here's the science behind that. Decisions are a way of formatting, of creating progress, so making decisions specifically in your brain triggers the prefrontal cortex, which feels the same positive feelings we get when we set goals. You know, when you're sitting down your journaling about goals, you get like this. Yeah, so many big goals. That's actually dopamine, right? That's your prefrontal cortex, giving you pleasure. The same thing happens when you decide we're gonna have vegetarian for dinner. I'm gonna make sure that I post this post today at 11 a.m. I'm gonna learn how to do Facebook live. When you make those decisions, they're actually many goals. Your brain does not know the difference between a mini goal and a decision. So if you cannot find yourself making progress or you're having a the kind of a day, the best thing you can do is make a decision on almost anything, because that is for your brain, a way of making very small progress. Making decisions also helps us reduce worry and anxiety because it makes us feel in control, which we know from day number four is really important for our feelings of happiness. One single decision can help you overcome strayed IAM activity, which is where negative impulses originate. So this is very simplified. I had to simplify some of the science into a couple of bullets, but basically what this study found is that when we are thinking about bad behavior like we're thinking about doing something, we would know wouldn't serve us very well when we're in anxiety were in that worry echo chamber, right? When you're saying that, what if What if What if that typically happens in a specific part of your brain? So when you make a decision, it activates the prefrontal cortex, which helps override that worry echo chamber. So if you feel very, very worried, bogged down anxious, you get up and you're like, I'm feeling a lot of dread today. The best thing you can do is make any decision at all. Even I'm gonna have oatmeal for breakfast, and I'm gonna add five blueberries. That helps override that anxiety that's happening especially you don't know the cause of it. Sometimes that can happen with our anxiety. That makes sense. The idea of a decision perfect last one is future driven. So this I think, the hardest one today. This is optional, but I hope that you will go on it with me. So the faster we learned to drop our emotional deadweight, the more room we create for something better. I think the best way that we can run four minute miles or emotionally run four minute miles is to drop all the weights that were carrying. It's really hard to run fast and achieve goals were carrying a lot anger. So when we looked at our happiness, research anger was a part of this happiness research. We asked, People know what makes you angry? How anger you on a day to day basis. What we found was that anger is actually not the opposite of happiness. We're gonna learn about the opposite of happiness in Day 10. What it does, though, is it consumes it. So it's kind of like a Pacman. That's how anger is is. It isn't the opposite. It's even worse. It actually takes any happen is happiness that it smells. Think of angry like a really hungry Pacman, and it goes and just chomp. Sit up. So I think that we have to focus a little bit in this course. Yes, I want talk about how to create happiness. But I also want to get rid of the blockers or the consumers of happiness. And this is the best metaphor for anger. Holding on to anger is like grasping Ah, hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else. You are the one who gets burned right When you're holding on to anger, you're the only one who's getting burned. I think that how do we How do we begin to let go of anger, like, Where does it even go? There is one thing I think we can do together to start this process, and that is looking at forgiveness. So a lot of anger has to do with people things that have held us back or make us feel there was an in justice served to us, however, for giving those things and those people is actually one of the most freeing things that we can dio. And here's what the science has to say. So when we forgive, it strengthens our immune system and increases our self esteem at it improves our relationship. This is just one study of many that talked about the emotional benefits of forgiveness. I also think, of course, it lets go of anger, but I also think that it helps us go into truth. Our brain loves truth. We love to speak truth. It feels it's a glut, lighter cognitive load and makes us feel free. It makes us feel authentic and riel, you notice I don't say live your authentic self A lot in this course. I don't mention authenticity a lot because I actually think that when we're speaking in truth, you don't even have to worry about authenticity. And lastly, I think it helps us live more in the present, Right? A lot of happiness. Studies will tell you live in the present moment. Smell the flowers, right? Be more present. I never really understood what that meant. I never really knew how to do that. But I do think that letting go of some of those past weights can help us be free to live more in the present. So in your bonus, I want us to do an activity together. So I think that we actually have this in your workbook. It's also in your bonuses. If you just want to hit the R S V P button on the course page, you will get all those bonuses for free. I want to do a little activity, just brain dump here. And I'm not gonna ask you if your answer out loud. So don't worry. I know that it's very personal. What pops into your head when I ask you the question. What anger Cole are you holding on to? Is there something that you've been holding on to That just kind of burns you a little bit. Next question, Who do you need to forgive? Is there someone that pops in your mind that even though you don't like to admit it, you would you really know that they deserve some forgiveness? And lastly, what are you ready to move on from? Is there something in your past or something in your life that you feel that you've been sort of carrying with you as a little saddle bag? That it being really nice to kind of just drop it and leave it. So I want us to think about this, and as we're thinking about it, I actually want you to sort of perch a little bit about it. I want you to write about this. The reason for that is because Journal of American Medical Association found that writing is the best way that we heal. That's how we actually things go. Expressing a bad experience or writing about negative feelings or putting forgiveness in tow words is one of the best ways that we have that forgiveness boost increasing the immune system, making us have more self confidence. So what I want us to do is I want us to just surrender for a second. So all of you in the audience have white cards at home. I want you to take out a white piece of paper if you can. And on this piece of paper, I want you to capitalize. Remember how we learned in week five the one word, the idea of one word? I want you to think of that cold, that person, that idea. And I want you think of one word for what it would feel like if you let it go. So not the anger. Don't write down anger word right down the feeling of giving it up. Would it be relief? Would it be happiness would be freedom? What's that? One word that's going to define what you're gonna feel afterward that you just write down that one word at a home. If you could write down that one word, you write it down. When you're done, I want you. Actually, you can fold it for me so that it's kind of private and I want you hold it up, please. I'm gonna do one to All right. All right. You ready? So when you surrender, you wave your white flag, right? So we're gonna say at the same time I surrender you. Ready? 123 I surrender, And I would like your white cards claim taking that from you. So that anger cool. You're going to give it to me, and I'm gonna take them, and I'm going to burn them. Thank you. Thank you. I feel good. And I like a little a little bit of relief at home, only to take your piece they were going to fold up. You can crumple it up. You can burn it. It's like a symbolic sort of letting go. My challenge you today, it obviously takes a little bit more than this. But I want to think about what is one little piece of movement you can get. What's one little bit of letting go that you can do So you are free to run that four minute mile. I will take these and keep them safe. Last one. I forgot. Of course. Luck driven. We talked about the lucky Jack. I finally have to talk about luck. I think that we were talking about luck. When I've explored this in my own mind, I either think it's on or it's off. What I mean by that is either your in the mind set of on so the opposite of negativity bias it positively bias. What's working for me? You're going around the world and you're like, this is working for me. This is working for me or you're off and you're thinking what's working against me and you're going to the world's near like, Oh, there's traffic today. Of course, this person didn't get me cough right, like you're doing all of those working against me things. I think that there is very little in between. I think you're usually in the on or you're in the off. I think this happens in different ways, so this could be internal, right? So you can be exploring in an on way by looking for the Tetris effect you could be exploring in on way by looking for your skills. Could be exploring in a non way by place storm with hoping curiosity or looking for your gratitude totem. So every day that we've learned so far, I've been trying to trick your brain into turning on. You can also do this externally. So in your workbook, I want us to do what I call the on or off activity. So if you turn, this is a little bit later in your pillar number eight. And what we're gonna do is we're going Teoh, And there's a lot of, by the way extra I have a ton of extra credit prompts in the work work for you this lesson. So please go through the for your learning bucket list, have ideas, ways that you can do your learning bucket list. So on number four, you'll see luck driven. So we're gonna talk about when in your life are you on or off specifically waking up? I think when you're on when you first wake up, you say things like this. Oh, I'm so excited today. Four blank should go so well today is going to be great in this way. If you're off your mind, sounds a little bit more like this. Oh, I want to go back to sleep. Oh, that's going to be so stressful. I am dreading blank some curious. Get out your reading, Green cards most of the time. Do you think you're on or you're off when waking up? A little mixed. Okay, so this is not wrong or right, But I want you to sort of think about next time you're waking up and my on or off. Right? Where are you starting your day? Next one. Going to bed on. Sounds like this. Oh, yeah, that went so well today. Best part of today was tomorrow. I'm excited about whereas off. Sounds like that went wrong. Tomorrow is going to be stressful. I'm dreading, by the way, this is fixed mindset. This is growth mindset, right? We're talking about honor off. They tend to match. So when you're going to bed, do you think you're usually on or off? What's kind of a feeling you can have both. Okay. Pre and post mortems. So whenever I go to an event, I typically in pre mortem ing. So why in my master people skills class, I talk about getting ready for an event, right? Like how you think the events gonna go practicing responses, practicing your elevator pitch. And I also do post mortems, right? You'll even event. You're like God. I should have said, I wish I had done that person was there, But you're kind of going through what happened in that event. So I'm curious when you're getting ready for adventure after event. Are you on or off on? Sounds like I'm excited for this events coming. Great opportunity. I know Blank will go well or are you off? But it's going to be really hard. This will never work because Blank did not to go well when he think on Zaroff. Okay, so we don't often think about this state, but because we know the power of predictive encoding. If you're on before an event that is going to change how you Arthuis event, if you are on, it's much more likely the event will also stay on, and then your postmortem will go well. If you are off before an event, it's almost impossible for that event to go well, so how can you be more on? I want you at home and here in the audience that think about just one one area to focus on to try to be more on. So is it waking up? Is that the most important part of your day? is it before you go to bed? Is before you hit that amazing REM sleep? Or is it before or after events? What's one area target? If you do all of them at once, it's too much. So how many people think that they're going to try for waking up? How many building they're going to try for going to bed? Okay, how about pre mortems before events? How about post mortems after events? Interesting. Very evenly split. So that's OK. I want you to pick your number one thing and focus on it. And then in your happiness, check in in a few weeks. When you kind of come back to this course, try to add one more to the list. The other aspect of this is also external exploring. We've talked a lot about our mindset today, but I also think that you can be on for people in your life. When you're with friends, you could be honor off. Sorry, this is so small. When you were on with friends, you ask questions, but also turn them on. So instead of saying, Oh, was that work project really hard or are you really stresses it? You're busy season, you can ask things like, Hey, what was the best part of your day? Working on anything fun? Any interesting projects happening at work? Those are on questions. Two things happen when you do this one is you give the gift of turning them on right in a good way, emotionally turning them on. And then you also they will usually ask that question back to you. So even if you are feeling off for neutral, they helped turn you back on because they're asking that question you mentioned when I ask from you and I want that from you, it's much easier. It's the same thing with friends. So try to set up your social relationships for the predictive encoding. So it's this beautiful circular happiness with family. The end of the day, right? What went well today? What do you know what you most excited about for this weekend to do? Learn anything in school today? Learning and encouraging that learning what was the new thing you learned actually also helps your Children with that learning aspect, that growth mentality. My dad, by the way, asked us that every single night at dinner, what did you learn today, and if we did not have an answer, he would be like, Why are you going to school? Go find something toe learn. And so at the end of the day, I would usually, like, save something for him, a new word that I learned a crazy fact that I learned I'm so grateful for that teaching. I think that's one of the reasons why I still learn, because he had encoded or he'd built that system into my head at the end of every day with colleagues. We don't do this a lot of work, but I actually think that we can be turning people's light switches on all over the place at work, all different kinds of questions. So what did you learn on the project? What did you like best about the speaker, the training, the meeting, working on any exciting projects? Is that project going as well as you had hoped? What was your biggest Ah ha moment? What was the most important thing I learned right, sharing that for people, be that person, right? Be that person after meetings after trainings, after experiences where you are always asking those kinds of questions, not only will you give the gift? But they will also typically come to you even on your bad days, toe ask you those questions, which then flips you into an upward spiral. Special note, of course, has also helps activate other people's G spots, right. It helps them be more grateful for learning. It helps them feel like they're giving as well. Especially you're asking for help, I think is one of the best things we can do with others. So tomorrow we're going to slip from minds that we had a really mindset heavy day. Tomorrow we're gonna talk about the body. We're gonna talk about my triangle of wellness theory. And I have never talked about wellness before. I've never done that. I've never talked about nutrition. I never talk about You know what I eat? How exercise. So I'm excited about tomorrow. A little bit nervous. We will be talking about the body here. My challenges Start your learning bucket, Lis. 10 to 15 items and I have a ton of extra things for your learning bucket lists. And that fast in your workbook. So you talk about things you wanted to learn. I'm also gonna talk about how you want to learn those things. So what are the different methods of learning books? Audiobooks, Court that courses. We're also gonna break down your learning bucket list. I want to answer these when you learn. So what are your learning rhythms? When do you best absorb new information and then also wear? So I want you to complete that exercise in your workbook on the learning bucket list to create some progress indicators. Start your own Russian doll to do list. Set up some 1,000,000 many celebrations. Think about how you can track your progress and numbers or in stories. Three. Pick one area to turn on. Right that one area that raise your hand on at home. Hopefully, you picked one that you want to turn on for you Bonus writes a letter of forgiveness. You do not have to deliver it. So if you can take out a letter and write that personal letter forgiveness as hard as it is if you consent it wonderful if you can't, that's OK. But just even writing that letter can really help with letting go that coal. Let's talk about the most important thing we learned today, so I would love to hear from you guys. What was your Ah ha. My taught a lot today. So is your ah ha moment of the day. Yes, I really like the idea of the Russian dull to do list because I've tried so many different productivity's things like, I have also used that productive and it doesn't work for me. And I've broken down to do list in, like, a Google spreadsheet, but maybe sort of this idea of, like, physically doing a thing and then having like, a mini celebration afterwards Well, you know, get me into doing, like, a to do list. Yes, and also, it doesn't have to be everything on a duelist, Right? Doesn't have to be checking email, but it could be some of those bigger, chunky projects that, like you're either putting offer don't like. I hope you like that as much as I dio someone else, Razor. And yes, I've appreciated having the tool like the Touchstone of the switch on switch off, because I think like what I was talking about earlier, how I had the two buckets of like communication. I am so switched on in one bucket, and I am so switched off and the other bucket. And so, yeah, it's gonna be huge to be able to be aware of that and switch on when I'm normally, I don't like it's a self question, right? Like and my honor off right now? Yeah, like even that diagnosis is way more introspection. And we have normally, and I think that, like when you come in here, you're thinking like, what's gonna go right? Right? And that's exactly it with a Facebook live, I'm sure, like what's gonna go wrong, right? What's not gonna go right? So I want we gotta find a way switching on more often. Yes. I love it. Yeah, the concept again. The happiness comes from curiosity, learning and exploring. Yeah, not having more money more materialistic. And Jimmy, two shoes s when you look on your learning bucket list. One thing read More books. Yeah, and and right. The whole list of ah long letter forgiving with Yes, you should totally start with our happy reading list. I think so. If you're thinking about what books to start with, a reading was one of them. We have a happy reading lesson, the bonuses because a bunch of really good ones in there. Yeah, I really loved talking about how decisions can help you with progress. Oftentimes I feel like I want I love research. And I'd like to, you know, ask a few different people's opinions. And sometimes I find myself in analysis. Paralysis. Yeah. So really encouraging myself to even just make the smallest decisions to help create that momentum in the progress. I love it even like titles of things, right? Like opening a document like even those like, little time decisions, because research is the best foreign procrastination. And I know this very well. So tomorrow we're going to be talking about the body in the triangle of wellness. I hope at home please tweet me. What? You're happy? Ah ha! Moment was I'm gonna be giving away a copy of captivates Everyone who t tweets all 10 days will announce the winners at the end. And I will see you guys tomorrow. We're going to stand up and dance our way out. Cancer that's at home. Shake it on a little bit