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Take a glimpse into the world of applied positive psychology with The Flourishing Center podcast. Each episode includes three sections giving you insights and hacks into living an authentically happy and flourishing life. What you'll learn in this podcast: Science Says—Learn what people who score high in trait emotional intelligence do differently. Life Hack—Learn how to further develop your own emotional intelligence. Practitioner’s Corner—Find out how one executive coach puts positive psychology into practice with her clients. Learn more about The Flourishing Center Read the interview from the Practitioner's Corner: Emiliya:  Hello everyone, and join me in welcoming Lisa Jacobson. She is a career consultant and leadership coach, and she is incredibly unique in so many ways, and one of which is that she holds both a Masters Degree in Applied Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, and she's also a graduate of our Certification in Applied Positive Psychology program here at The Flourishing Center. We're so excited to have Lisa with us and learn about how she's been applying positive psychology. She is an individualizer in our 5i Model, meaning that she uses positive psychology on a one-on-one basis with helping people figuring where are they and where do they want to go in their life. Lisa:  Well, I was a practicing human resources consultant, an internal consultant with Verizon, and I felt as though I reached a plateau in terms of how I could help people in the workplace. I really felt as though I needed more knowledge about what works well in the workplace and so that's what led me to the Masters of Applied Positive Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. Emiliya:  Beautiful. What brought you to the CAPP program as well? Lisa:  Well, the CAPP program is very interesting to me because I was in the same MAPP program as one of the co-founders, and I felt after several years of practicing positive psychology, I needed a refresher course, and I thought this was one way to find out what's some of the newer research out there and how could I use the existing research in new and different ways. Emiliya:  Tell us, Lisa, how are you using positive psychology personally and professionally? Lisa:  In my coaching practice, it's a very much a full practice. There are probably four different ways in which I practice positive psychology on a full-time basis. The first one is in Tampa, Florida. I actually have a clientele of young people who are about to graduate college and are undecided about what they want to do with the degree that they'd been earning, and then also some people in the Southeast United States who are currently in the workplace, and they want to maybe make a pivot and change directions in their career for many reasons. It varies considerably. Then I have my executive coaching practice, and what I do in that is there are some firms in the Southeast, businesses, a couple of construction companies that I work with, a research company that I work with, and some health care organizations, and I go into their workplaces, I'm hired usually by the CEO of the company, to work with their leaders who have a lot of potential, and I walk them through a leadership development program. Finally, what I've added just recently, and I really love it, I didn't know what I was going to think is I actually contract as a 1099 for a coaching organization called BetterUp. Emiliya:  Wow, that is so cool, Lisa. I love the variety of experiences that you get to have in the work that you're doing with people, being in such different places of their life as they're working with you. What are some of the ways in which you find yourself integrating positive psychology as you do this one-on-one work Lisa:  Positive psychology's actually my absolute guiding post for just about any activity that I do with clients. On a basic level, let's say that I'm working with someone about career decisions. The first thing is to guide that person to clarify their goals and to list those goals, and then to agree that they're going to be accountable for those goals, and also that I agree to help the become accountable to those goals and for the goals to be specific and for them to be measurable for them to have an idea of what a good might be. That would be step number one in just career exploration. There are probably 36 different activities I work with, I use from CAPP or positive psychology that are positive things that tap into a person's strengths to create a greater awareness of what those strengths are, and then to apply those strengths in new and different ways. I'd like to say that probably one of the most fundamental and most effective methods that I use is the "my best moment" method, and I usually establish that early on in the relationship. I do that because I find that when you ask someone about a best moment in their life, it's a bonding experience with them, so this establishes trust in a fairly quick way, and I share my own best story with them too. I usually have two versions. One that's just kind of an everyday best moment, and then there's a deeper one that I share when I feel we have established maybe greater intimacy, but this best moment story gives people a chance. It gives my clients an opportunity to reveal who they are, who they have been at their very best. It gives me the opportunity to listen for their strengths and to begin to appreciate what they're good at. When we have this experience of back and forth, like when I tell them, "I heard in this that you're a very creative person, and I saw a lot of curiosity in it as well," then they verify if what I heard is accurate or not. This gets them thinking they've really never thought of before. It just kind of opens the floodgates for ideas. Emiliya:  Wow. Thank you, Lisa. I hear you saying that one of the pillars of your practice is focused on identifying and naming strengths and that you are listening for your client's strengths as you're speaking with them and that you're kind of bringing them out within them as you're sharing, as you're listening to them speak about their goals, their dreams, their aspirations for themselves in life. Lisa:  Yes, exactly, because I really don't know of any formal program or opportunity that people have to begin to find their voice, and by their voice, I mean to be able to answer the question, who am I and why am I here and how do I add value to my family, to my friends, to my organization, to my team. These are such important questions, and it's just, it mystifies me why the first time someone finds themself answering these questions is often with the work that I do with them. Emiliya:  That's such a great point, Lisa, in that we can, as change agents ourselves, start to ask these questions of the people that we know, of the people that we care about that people shouldn't have to wait until they're finding themselves in just a professional setting or place of transition to start to recognize these things about themselves. Lisa:  Sure. I usually start out with a very lighthearted story of when I was, in my early 50s, and I think it's important to note that because I work with a lot of people who are aged 50-plus, and I really try to live out the fact from what we know about change and adult development and positive psychology that we continue to learn and grow, and that improves the quality of my lives. One of my best moments was when I started to do more exercise, and I actually kind of got that motivation from you because to me, when it comes to positive psychology, you represent the importance of the vitality that people have, and vitality becomes so much more important as you age. We take it for granted when we're younger. With vitality in mind, I signed up at the local YMCA to take a Body Pump class. That's basically weightlifting to music. It was down the street from where I work, so I would just run over and snag a class. I'd often come to the class late and I would often leave early because I had appointments, and people were paying me to be their coach, and I had a lot of work to do. I was building my practice up, so I didn't take it very seriously, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and loved it. One day, I came in with flip flops on. In fact, I call this my flip flop story. They were probably into the third routine. The instructor stops the class, and she says, "You can't stay in this class, Lisa, because you're not dressed appropriately. You need close-toed shoes. We're dealing with weights here," and I said, "Well, if you don't mind, I'd just like to stay because I'm here already." She left the room, and I thought everyone in the class, there were 30 people in the class, I thought they would say, "Oh, let Lisa stay," but no one defended me. I was really embarrassed, and I realized at that moment that my late entrance to the class and my early departures were things that people kind of didn't like about me. They didn't come to my defense. Everyone was annoyed because I was holding up the class. The manager of the YMCA came to the front door, and like a principal, he asked me to come to his office, and then he told me about rules and regulations and safety. I was humiliated for being called out, and I walked home, and something just came inside of me where I just said, "You know, I'm 50 years old, and I can't just act like a little girl here and get angry and hide my head in a pillow. I have to buck up and get back to that class and apologize to the instructor for my lack of motivation and tardiness and just not taking it seriously." I did, I went back to the class. I finished the class with my shoes on, and then after the class, I walked up to the instructor, and I told her that I apologize, and I said, "I learned a lesson, and the lesson was that I wasn't valuing her time as much as I valued my own, and I wasn't taking the class seriously, and that I would hereafter." She said, "Thank you," and from then on, I took it more seriously, in better shape for it too, but more importantly, I learned that I was disrespecting her, because to me, honestly, and this is still hard for me to admit, I did not value her time as much as I valued my own. Emiliya:  Firstly, I'm so grateful because I can tell you that I, too, am a Body Pump enthusiast, and I, too, have actually been that person who showed up in flip flops and was like, "What do you mean I can't do this class barefoot? I actually really prefer to squat and do things in my barefoot running shoes anyway," and have also been told to leave the class until I am able to come in with sneakers and find myself in that place too. Thank you so much for sharing that at the always in a hurry person within me bows to the always in a hurry person within you and recognizes that we share this in common along with a passion for this particular modality. As you share that story with your clients, what are some of the strengths that you highlight within ourself or pieces of learning that you hope that they'll capture within that story? Lisa:  Well, first of all, I hope they feel comfortable enough to admit that they're human and even at whatever age, we still have things to learn. It's so important. Even character strengths. They often tell me that they hear the humility in having learned a lesson, and they also hear perseverance, and as much as that I didn't give up, I went back to the class, and they hear honesty and authenticity and bravery. Bravery is interesting because so many people think bravery has to do with a physical thing, but bravery, as we know from positive psychology, has to do with being brave enough to be honest with yourself and with other people. Emiliya:  You said that that's the more surface-level story. I know that we're just getting to know you, but what's the deeper story that you sometimes share with clients? Lisa:  Well, the deeper story is a story of resilience, and it's one that I have come to really appreciate as I've told certain people. It seems, as a coach, that I really have my whole life together, and it appears as though sometimes people want to be like me. I want to let them know that this was, my journey has been a very long and painful journey with a lot of work involved and a lot of effort. The story begins just when I was a child. I had a mother and father, but my mother was mentally ill. She had severe psychosis and bipolar disorder. She ended up having four children, and she was really unable to take care of her children. I grew up in Philadelphia, actually, and we used to spend summers at the Jersey Shore. One summer, we were renting a house there, and school was starting, it was late August, and school was starting in September. This is where my mother could really relax, and it would be a vacation for her. Well, this particular summer, when I was 11 years old, we all got in the car to go back to Philadelphia, and everything was packed up, but my mother would not get in the car to come back to Philadelphia with us. I didn't quite understand it, but she was having yet another nervous breakdown, and she really just said, she came to the car, and she said, "I just can't do this anymore." That was really a tough moment for us all to handle. My father had no choice but to drive us back to Philadelphia. School started, and my mother never came home. That was September. Then in October, it was my birthday, and still, mom did not come home. November was Thanksgiving, no mom. December was Christmas, again, mom, it seemed as though she was just not going to return. It seemed as though she decided she could not raise her four children. In January, my father called his family in Tampa, Florida and asked if they could help raise us. We moved into a little two bedroom house with my great-aunt who I've never met before, and we started our lives all over again. Needless to say that that was a very though, bewildering time for me, and I just did what I had to do. I put one foot in front of the other to get through it. The toughest part, really, was as a teenager growing up in a new environment, people would always ask, "Well, where's your mom?" I would say, "She's very, very sick, and I don't think she's ever coming here. That, it's like she's terminally sick," I would say. I kind of make up stories as a kid. Then they found out, basically, that my mother was chronically mentally ill, and she gave us up to my dad. Kids make fun of stuff like that, and they think you're weird, and they don't want to be around you, and they think there's just something wrong with you and your family. A lot of judgment of the stigma of mental illness. I grew up with adversity that way, not having a mother, then it being kind of an illness that has a stigma, and then facing the fact that was abandoned by my other, and then being raised by man and dealing with all that going to high school and college and so forth. I just had to make my own way and make the best of the circumstances that I had. It wasn't easy, but I found my way forward, and I did it. That's my story. Emiliya:  It's an amazing thing to put the two strength stories together because you can hear the honesty and the authenticity and the bravery that comes with both being honest with yourself and also the bravery to just do what needs to be done and putting one foot in front of the other in stories of resilience like this one. Thank you so much for sharing that, Lisa. Lisa:  You're welcome. Bottom line there is that I was very, very sad, sad, sad, sad, as a child, and I found that you can do things to make your life matter. You don't have to resign to what your life circumstances have given you. That's what I've learned. Actually, my adulthood has been a lot happier than my childhood. Emiliya:  What are some ways that you personally practice positive psychology in adulthood that give you that sense of happiness and well-being and life satisfaction? Lisa:  Well, I practice mental hygiene. I think that's a term, actually, I got from you in the CAPP course. I start every day of my life quietly in meditation. Before I do anything, I practice meditation. I set intentions for the day, and it's usually 15 to 20 minutes of my practice in setting intentions. Then I routinely practice yoga twice or three times a week, and I exercise twice or three times a week as well. These things are absolutely staples in my life. I not only coach actively with the science of positive psychology being my primary toolbox, but I live it. I practice gratitude as well every day, and so does my husband. We've been doing that for 10 years now, sometimes more consistently than others, but before I open my computer and I check my email, I write down three things for which I am grateful or three things that went well. Well, it sets the tone for the day for me, but with the gratitude, meditation, exercise, yoga, it all comes together. There's this synergy there too. There's definitely a synergy, and let me tell you, Emiliya, as you know, in studying for my masters, I couldn't sit still to meditate for three minutes. It has taken me years to work up to the 20 minutes that I now do. I tell people that because they think, "Oh, I just can't meditate," and I say, "This is something for some people that takes years of practice." Emiliya:  I'm definitely in the same boat as well. I can't tell you how many times I ... I mean, I've been at it for over 14 conscious years of when I first learned about meditation to getting to the point where I do do it, I do it frequently, still not every day, and so one of the things that's helped me is reminding myself that what we do on the cushion is what we do off the cushion, and that on the cushion, your mind wanders, and you come back, and your mind wanders, and you come back, and what's most important is not that you have a clear mind, but that you keep coming back. That's definitely helped me having some more compassion towards myself on days when I haven't been meditating. It's all about coming back. Lisa:  That's probably the benefit for staying at it for 10 years is that I am able, through the course of the day, to center myself. In a matter of a second, I can go to that place. It's my reset button, and it's wonderful. Emiliya:  Beautiful. What have been some of the more powerful interventions and exercises that you've used with your clients as you've been sharing positive psychology with them? Lisa:  At BetterUp, I've found that people in the workplace are starving for things that they can use in the workplace to avoid running down the hall and getting a Snickers bar or something because they're stressed out. A lot of us at work, we're stressed because we're stretched to reach our goals, and we can easily break down by, we even break down that self-discipline muscle we have. It's important to set ourselves up for success, and one of the ways that we can do that is by being prepared, by planning in advance for when things go wrong. One of the things I love to do is encourage people to figure out what works specifically for them when they're stressed out to de-stress and to calm down and to not do something negative like go, for me, it used to be go the, we used to have snack machines, and go to snack machine and get a Snickers bar. There a number of things that you can do, and one of them is what I call a BMW, and that just means try breathing first. We talk a lot about how breathing actually helps, a conscious breathing, helps at least bring more oxygen to the brain. One of the first things that even physicians do is when they're trying to figure out what's wrong with someone is figure out how much oxygen do they have in their blood, and so it's very important thing to understand that your bloodstream is getting oxygen. The simplest most fundamental way of doing that is to be conscious of your breathing and to do it more efficiently and effectively. The M stands for move, so if the breathing still makes you go have an urge for a Snickers bar I say move. Walk around the building, walk around the parking lot, the parking garage, but see if that can distract you. Then W is water, of course. Hydrate. Drink a glass of water and see if that doesn't ... If you tried all three of those things and you still have this urge to feed that stress with some kind of unhealthy habit, I guess you tried not to. That's one little intervention that I use in the workplace because most of the time, no matter where anybody works, it's stress is the biggest issue with them, effectively dealing with stress, using stress in a positive way, so here's an example of using stress in a positive way. This is another thing that I took away from [inaudible 00:31:06] with Louis at CAPP, and that is, instead of, I have to do something, I get to do something. Emiliya:  Beautiful, Lisa. Thank you so much for sharing some of these powerful interventions with us that you integrate into your work. I'm curious if we could close our time off together with anything that you are really excited about within the field of positive psychology that you're reading or researching right now that's top of mind for you? Lisa:  I think decision making is one of, it's a very common topic for positive psychology. People want to make better decisions, and what we keep finding is that decisions are better made when you discuss them objectively, bringing that objective quality into them, and that's why working with a coach, it doesn't have to be a coach, but working with a coach or a mentor, someone, just talking about the steps of your decision making with someone has a positive impact on the change that you want to make in your life. Emiliya:  Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Lisa. Thank you for taking the time to share your expertise in your practice of positive psychology with us. Lisa:  Thank you. It was my pleasure. Emiliya:  Lisa, if people wanted to find out m ore about your work, where could they find you? Lisa:  They can Google Lisa Garcia Jacobson. Emiliya:  Beautiful. Thank you, Lisa. Lisa:  Thank you. Bye. Emiliya:  Learn more about Lisa Jacobson's work at workplacesolutionstampa.com, including her interview bootcamp, career services, and executive coaching. Speaking of interviews, check out our website theflourishingcenter.com/5imodel. That's the number 5, the letter i, and the word model. This is a questionnaire that we've established to help you figure out which of the five change agent types you fall into, and based on identifying what type of change agent you are in the world, let us help you identify your personalized road map for success in helping you spread positive psychology in the science of flourishing around the world.

Take a glimpse into the world of applied positive psychology with The Flourishing Center podcast. Each episode includes three sections giving you insights and hacks into living an authentically happy and flourishing life. What you'll learn in this podcast: Science Says—Learn about heart rate variability and this powerful measure of the body's resilience. Life Hack—Build heart rate variability with breathing exercises. Practitioner’s Corner—Meet Jillian Guinta, she supports her community and takes a positive psychology-based approach to trauma. Learn more about The Flourishing Center Read the interview from the Practitioner's Corner: Emiliya:  Hello everyone, and join me today in welcoming Jillian Guinta. She's coming to us live from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She is a trauma recovery coach and teacher of therapeutic yoga. She's also a trained positive psychology practitioner from us here at The Flourishing Center. Welcome, Jillian. It is so great to have you here. Jillian:  Emiliya, it's great to be on with you today, as well. Thanks so much. Emiliya:  So tell us, Jillian: What brought you to this work? What brought you to positive psychology? Jillian:  Positive psychology, to be perfectly honest, was not on my radar. I was actually enrolled in a doctoral program when I found out about CAPP. I found out actually on a date with a really nice guy who had gone through the program, and as he was describing the program to me, I'm like, "Oh, man! That sounds so much more interesting than what I'm doing right now in grad school. And the tides in my life shifted, and the next semester I opted not to enroll in my university work and I went ahead and registered for CAPP. So it was really serendipitous to have met this person at all and then to have gone through the same program. Emiliya:  That's awesome. I love that, I love that. I love that it must have just been a really great date conversation, as well, to be sharing insight about well-being. So tell us: What does your application of positive psychology look like? Jillian:  So, right now, I am using positive psychology in my work. I work one-on-one with clients that have gone through traumatic experiences, and then it informs my yoga as well because traumas will often get locked in the body, and so to be able to coach someone through using some of the skills that we've learned together such as habit change and things of that nature have been really instrumental in helping these people make the changes in their lives as they start to come up for them at different points in their experience. Emiliya:  That's awesome. Tell us more about your background. Before you came to positive psychology, you were heavily involved in the fitness industry, right? Jillian:  I was. I was actually a personal trainer for many years. I actually have memories of being 10 years old at the grocery store with my mother and saying, "I want to be a personal trainer when I grow up," and she goes, "What's that?" I'm like, "I don't really know, but it looks like they have fun and they're in shape." So I got that start towards the end of my college experience at Rutgers University in New Jersey. I stayed with that for quite some time. I ended up going, uh, switching careers in my early 20s and I went into a master's program for education and started to just parse through the different backgrounds that I was experiencing and kind of coming into my own, really unsure about where I wanted to be in the world. And it was about that time in my mid-twenties where, you know, God or spirit, the universe--whoever--really upped my challenges, and I had some difficult issues, some traumas of my own that I had to work with. And I eventually found my way into yoga, then into a yoga program that was specifically for therapeutics, and we covered healing trauma. So I was able to then guinea pig these ideas and these different skills on myself and monitor my own healing. And then, having gone through the CAPP Program gave me a lot more confidence to go out into the world. Prior to that, I hadn't done anything that would equip me with too many coaching skills. I had a sales background and personal training and I had learned how to do motivational interviewing in my yoga training. But there was still a big disconnect in knowing the most appropriate ways to speak to clients that have gone through really troubling events. The positive psychology work really helped me to refine those skills that I wanted to have but that I didn't have yet. Emiliya:  Beautiful, Jillian, thank you so much for sharing that. Many of our listeners may not be familiar with some of the concepts because they're more research-based in positive psychology and traditional psychology, so can you tell us more about motivational interviewing? Jillian:  So motivational interviewing is sitting with a client or someone who has yet to become a client and kind of sifting through the things that are pulling them forward and also the things that are holding them back. So for someone who is a prime candidate for motivational interviewing, they might be a little ambivalent to change. They're not quite comfortable where they are but it's familiar and they're not sure if they want to go forward--often because they don't see the pathways. So through the process of motivational interviewing and coaching them and finding out--What are the things that motivate them?, What are the things that they're seeking?, gauging their present level of commitment or willingness--you're able to then ask them different questions to help them see the pathways of how the change might be possible. Emiliya:  Thanks, Jillian. I am so happy you pointed out the word "ambivalent" because one of the things I feel like I've learned the most from using motivational interviewing for over a decade now is that when people are not making a change, oftentimes they'll blame themselves. They'll think, "Oh I'm not motivated enough" or they'll just feel stuck and they don't really know why they feel stuck, but recognizing that part of motivation is not just the fact that they want to do something or don't want to do something--it's that there might be something that is pulling them in two directions, like "on the one hand, I want to start exercising, but when I exercise my knee hurts more. And so I'm in this stuck place. Do I exercise or do I make my knee hurt?" Or, when it comes to people making changes to their body, you'll see things like, you know, hiring a personal trainer has always been on their to-do list as maybe the last possible thing that would work for them, because so many things haven't worked. And the fear that comes with trying the last thing that they haven't tried yet--and what if that doesn't work?--is part of the reason that sometimes people don't start something. Because there's this fear. So I think it's such an important thing for people to hear that motivational interviewing is this really great approach of asking questions and reflective listening that does help people get motivated--but some of the ways in which it gets people motivated is by working through that ambivalence that they may feel of being pulled in different directions. Jillian:  Absolutely. It can get really challenging when you're about to make a big scary change. There is always something that's going to be willing to pop up in your face and say, "Hey, this is going to scare the pants off of you." And then you need to see why it's there and what you need to learn from it. Because ultimately we do want to change and grow and evolve. And I'm saying that as a blanket statement because I believe that to be true. But maybe we'd rather not have so many obstacles in the way. Emiliya:  Speaking of big scary changes you've made a lot of big scary changes in your life. Tell us about some of them. Jillian:  Oh wow. Yeah, I actually just a couple of days ago had my six month anniversary of being in a brand new city and a brand new state. I was born and raised in New Jersey and I recently moved down to Baton Rouge, Louisiana in kind of a whimsical way. I was doing a lot of journaling at that point in my life. It was after a breakdown of my marriage that had gone from a very healthy relationship to a very unhealthy relationship. A lot of negative patterns had emerged in me and it was time to lay that aside and work on myself and grow something new. So about a year after the separation from my husband, I was writing in my journal just asking for guidance, saying, "Where do you want me to be? What am I supposed to be doing? Who am I supposed to be helping?" And the next morning, I woke up and a news cast was on about Baton Rouge. Then I hear my dad playing a song that mentions Baton Rouge. And we live right on the border of New York City--we're not listening to a lot of music that references Baton Rouge, Louisiana! And then I would see it different places. And so I took that as a nudge from my own intuition saying, "Go here! See what this place is like." I'd only visited Baton Rouge once and it was totally boring. I actually said at the airport, "Oh well, I'm never coming back here. See ya!" And lo and behold, one year later, I was packing up my little white Elantra and grabbing the things that I thought I would need--which really just consisted at that time of clothing and books--and drove down the east coast and cut across Georgia and eventually made it to Baton Rouge, and made myself a little home here. So it's been six months. I arrived in March 2017, and since then, it's really been very divinely guided that I've been meeting the people that I was intended to meet--the ones that would help me in my journey. I have had lots of positive interactions with people. It's quite different from where you and I are from, Emiliya. It is a progressive city in the south but it doesn't compare to the level of resources that we have in New York. They don't have many folks that are doing trauma recovery. They don't have anyone that's doing positive psychology. Even advanced teacher trainings for yoga are few and far between. A lot of yoga teachers who would need to travel out of state to get some additional information and training. So it felt very much like an affirmation that I was in a place where I'm going to be used. And that's been a really exciting shift in my life. What was really frightening for me was leaving this home town where I grew up. Although I had traveled extensively, I hadn't lived anywhere else, but I kept coming back to the thought that if you're following your intuition, you're going to probably be fine. So here I am, six months later, with a brand new life. Emiliya:  I can't tell you, I'm like, I have chills and I feel so positively choked up for you because I'm celebrating this vision I have that you listened to the call. You picked up the call and that coming from a place in the New York/New Jersey region, we have a lot of need for so many things--but we do have a lot of people who have access. You can find a yoga class. You can find someone who does trauma work. You can find positive psychology practitioners. And I almost get the sense that the hearts and souls of these people who are ready to change were calling to you, and you picked up the call--and I celebrate that so much for you because you've got so many tools to offer them, so many skills that most people are just not aware even exist. And when they get them, it's like drinking water when you're thirsty. Such an honor. Jillian:  Great, thank you so much. I'm really excited. I'll be offering a training down here to yoga teachers, and I have some social workers showing up, as well as psychologists--yoga for trauma. It's an eight hour intensive in just a couple weeks. And I'm really excited. They're really excited. I've been making sure that my science is on point so I can deliver it well, and lots of people are going to heal--I feel that deeply--as a result of just sharing the information that we have access to. Emiliya:  Can you give me an example of some of the positive psychology that you find to be most helpful? So you talked about how you share the science of habit with some of the clients that you work with. What are some of the other positive psychology concepts and skills that you find really help people? Jillian:  I actually got to run one of our positive psychology Flourishing Skills Groups down here, and one thing that I noticed for me in my relationships was covering ACR--which is active constructive responding--has been huge for me. It's something that my clients and my friends and acquaintances in my group were really excited about bringing into their personal lives--celebrating the good things that happen in life, without too much of a context for people needing praise, but just enjoying the things that happen because if we look at all these small details, there's a lot that we can celebrate. So the active constructing constructive responding has been something really wonderful that we absolutely love down here. I have enjoyed doing "best possible future self" with people, and reframing mind chatter has been really helpful for everybody. Everyone has that--several voices in their heads, and they're telling us all different information, so we need to know what's coming up. If we don't fully realize why our mind chatter is, we can't work with it. It's the process of tuning enough to become aware of the subconscious and then working with it consciously. So those are a couple of my favorites. Emiliya:  Wow. Thank you, Jillian. And those of you listening, I'll just review some of the things that Jillian just said because those are awesome positive psychology exercises and interventions. Active constructive responding was a research topic that was uncovered by Dr. Shelly Gable and she recognized that we have a choice in how we can react to people's news. People often react to people's bad news by going, "Oh my gosh, what happened? Tell me more." And we get very granular in our asking for details in our curiosity when negative things happen, when bad things happen. But when positive events happen, those of us who have people in our lives that just go, "Oh that's great, congratulations, that sounds awesome" are responding in a positive way, but we can amplify that positivity by getting really curious and go, "Wow, tell me more. What enabled that?" And she found that the number of people that an individual has in their life that would help them celebrate their positive news and savor with them and be happy with them--not just happy for them, but genuinely happy with them--is a greater predictor of their well-being, whereas being silently supportive or the ways in which sometimes the people in our life are well-meaning and they want to support us, but you tell them things like, "Guess what, mom! I'm moving to Baton Rouge, Louisiana!" and they go, "Are you crazy? How are you going to leave your job? You don't know anyone down there!" and they give you all the negatives before first hearing out, "Wow. What makes you want to go there, and what is it about that that's exciting to you? What made you come to that and what possibilities are there for you?" and then being able to say, "Have you considered that you don't have a job there lined up for you and you don't actually know where you're living?" So the idea behind active constructive responding is savor and celebrate first. And it's an awesome, awesome intervention. And the other two that Jillian mentioned: best possible selves--which I would imagine, Jillian, is really powerful for people who are recovering from trauma or have recovered from trauma but just because you've recovered from trauma doesn't mean that you've built a vision of who's the person that you want to be--so the best possible future self is about giving people the space to think about how they want to be in the world and write about it and visualize themselves at their best. What would it be like if I met my goals? What would it be like if I felt the way that I want to feel? And then the last one that Jillian mentioned... I totally forgot! What did you mention as your last one? Jillian:  It was reframing mind chatter. Emiliya:  Reframing! I had to reframe my mind chatter and how I'm going, "What am I thinking? I can't remember what she just said." But I actually want to celebrate that moment for me because before I learned positive psychology, Jillian, I would have been like, "Emiliya, you're an idiot. How did you just forget what she said just a few moments ago?" But luckily, my brain didn't say that, and I had a permission-to-be-human moment. So reframing mind chatter. Jillian, when you give people some examples, what are some of the ways that they can reframe their thoughts? Or what type of thoughts should they be on the lookout for that are worth reframing? Jillian:  So, the ones that you're going to look out for the most--you can think of it almost like being at a picnic. If you have one little ant come by, not a big deal. But when a whole bunch of ants come by, that's kind of a big deal--especially in Louisiana because we have red ants and they bite! And I found that out the hard way. So when you start to notice repetitive negative thoughts that are making blanket statements about you or blanket statements about the world that are saying, "You're a bad person" or "You're so irresponsible" or whatever it happens to be. You referenced memory. I have also gone through memory issues. It's very common for folks that have gone through traumas in their life to struggle with short term memory. So something that might come up for them is like, "You're so dumb! You can't remember anything. Like, you may as well be 100 years old." Not a helpful thought--that's not going to be something that helps you improve your memory. So a reframe around having a lackingness in your short term memory might be: "I struggle to remember, but it's something that I'm working on every day" or "I forget things frequently, and so I use my calendar to remind myself." Things like that, that take something that could be a negative--maybe not always a negative, but could be a negative--and make it either neutral or a positive or something that's already being observed would be an appropriate reframe. We don't need to go from "You're so dumb" to "You're the smartest person on earth." It needs to be a believable and helpful reframe. Another one that I have struggled with is "You're so irresponsible." My "You're so irresponsible, Jillian" then becomes "You took a great risk and you are rebuilding parts of your life." That would be a neutralizing thought that counters this highly negative one of being an irresponsible person in the world. It's not true. So these couple of reframes and many, many other ones have been ones that I've used in my own personal life. They come up for my clients and for my students, as well and we'll continue to use them and will continue to reframe until we no longer need to--until we've either healed that area or have done enough of the healing that that's no longer our focus. Emiliya:  Beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing those, Jillian, and it's so powerful to just remember that we can doubt our doubts and we can judge our judgments. And so many of us just walk around with our thoughts just going amuk. And so thank you for those really specific ways that we could address our mind chatter. Jillian, I'm curious if you can close us off with any words to live by that you feel are your mottos in life or your guiding philosophies. Jillian:  My guiding philosophy right now--ah, this is such a great question. One thing I've been tinkering with and trying as often as possible to implement is an intervention for my own worry. And that intervention is just to say, "Don't worry about the how." Don't worry about how it's going to come. Get clear on what you want and start playing with ideas. Worry is not going to be something that's helpful unless it's a very short term problem. But you can always look for pathways, so don't worry about the how. The how will happen if it's something that you truly desire. Emiliya:  Beautiful, Jillian. Thank you so much. And one more question. What does it mean in your heart and in your eyes for people to flourish? Jillian:  In my heart, when I see and acknowledge people that are flourishing, they are taking it one day at a time. They are staying present for what's coming up for them. They are moving forward courageously and to the best of their ability. They're perhaps not always 100 percent happy 100 percent of the time because we are humans and we get to be participants in a whole range of human emotions. But these flourishing people that I see in the world are the ones that are staying present and engaging with whatever comes up and letting it wash right past them when it's over. So that's what flourishing is to me. Emiliya:  Thank you so much, Jillian. Learn more about Jillian's work at jillianguinta.com. Here is how you, too, can create a career out of helping people thrive. Learn more about how to teach and spread positive psychology to your organizations and communities by visiting our website: www.theflourishingcenter.com. Thanks for listening, and until the next episode: may you be well, may you be happy, may you feel fulfilled.

Take a glimpse into the world of applied positive psychology with The Flourishing Center podcast. Each episode includes three sections giving you insights and hacks into living an authentically happy and flourishing life. What you'll learn in this podcast: Science Says—Learn how behavioral synchrony impacts how people feel as result of being immersed in a group. Life Hack—Learn what science tells us about how to get in the zone. Practitioner’s Corner—Learn more about the project Happier By The Minute. Learn more about The Flourishing Center Read the interview from the Practitioner's Corner: Emiliya:  Hello everyone, with me today I have Stacey Yates Sellar. She is creator of Happier by the Minute. She's also a graduate of our positive psychology certification course that she did in San Francisco, California and she's also a graduate of our coaching certification program. Stacey is the mother of two gorgeous boys and the wife of a cool, hot, Scottish dude, as she describes him. Stacey:   I manifested. I totally manifested him. Emiliya:   Stacey it is so great to have you with us. Thank you. Stacey:   Thank you so much. I also did the Flourishing Skills workshop too. Whatever I can take, I take from The Flourishing Center because it is just ... There's so many great things. It is like an a la carte menu that has everything you could ever want. Emiliya:  Thanks Stacey. So, Stacey tell us, what is Happier by the Minute? Stacey:  Well, it's funny because it started as my class project in my CAPP course, which I stumbled upon as I was asking the universe to send me guidance and surround me with like minded people and help me figure out what my next iteration of myself is. I came across the CAPP class and then I took it really because at the end you have to do a project that says how you are going to deliver this to the world, the positive psychology. When I started the course I was like, "Oh I have no idea, but I'm going to do it anyway." Then of course by the end, I came up with this idea being a busy mom with a full time career running a pretty big multi-million dollar, multi-location business, I realized there's a lot of busy people out there and so I decided to create Happier by the Minute, which is little one minute videos with tools of positive psychology, that are free online and I will build from there, but that's how it started. It's just get it out there quickly and easily for people who are super busy. Emiliya:  I love that. Thank you Stacey. Tell us more about your background and what brought you to positive psychology? Stacey: Oh my goodness. I have been a searcher of "it," I used my air quotes, I would say all my life. People will be really, really surprised to know that I have a lot of depression in my family and that I was really depressed and have a lot of anxiety and insecurities in high school. I was always searching and before there were TED Talks and YouTube, there were those cassette programs from Dale Carnegie, and Earl Nightingale, Zig Ziglar, and of course Napoleon Hill, and so I was always reading and searching and it just has always been part of my life. Then I felt like, when I found the CAPP course, it definitely was like, "Ahhh, that's it. All the stuff I've been studying is actually under a name called positive psychology and it's all under one roof." It was really amazing to find that course and have it accessible to me as opposed to going to get the masters. Emiliya:  Awesome Stacey. Before you even came to this, you'd been an entrepreneur for many years as well right? Stacey:  I have. I am my own lesson in failure's okay. I've tried all kinds of different ways, with writing a book and doing a cable show, when cable was before again YouTube, and a radio show. Those things never quite clicked but in the meantime, as it does, life happened. I created a career in helping some other people building a really great business. Within that business I was really able to really do a lot of coaching and development for teams. So it's always been there. It's always been in my daily life. It's just kind of all coming together now. I'm just a late bloomer. Emiliya:  Beautiful Stacey, and how are you using positive psychology now? Stacey:  In my personal life it's changed so much in my relationships with my family, how I work with my kids, certainly at work, with my husband, but then how I want to deliver it is really exciting in putting together the videos and then I have an Instagram page where I try to give happiness hacks through what I'm doing in my daily life. So, it's really real and relevant. I do workshops for ... I have a child with special needs so I do a yearlong workshop in the district for other moms with special needs. I also teach a class at an alternative school here for teenagers about how to start using the skills of positive psychology now, early on, while they're in the height of when they need it the most. Everywhere. It touches me and I try to be a distributor of positive psychology as much as possible. Emiliya:  Yeah. You're definitely, Stacey, on our 5i change agent inventory, an inventor. Someone who digests and designs and disseminates positive psychology and you invent experiences for people, be it through the ability to watch your videos or interact in your classes or to read what you've written. It's such a great example of, you're a creator, you're an inventor. Stacey:  Thank you. That is the greatest compliment that you could give me. I just think of all the strength finders and the VIA institute, getting the values in action and knowing what my strengths are has helped me a lot. Yeah, and I want to invent even more ways. My next idea that I'm putting together right now is to create a weekly happy huddle. One thing that I know for sure is that it takes practice and consistency. While I love doing workshops and I love doing a little one minute video, I also know that you've got to create some habit of consistency around it and so I'm going to put together just a little half and hour phone call where people can call in weekly, they can choose a different time, and they can call in to this group call where for about 15 minutes we talk about a skill and a tool, maybe we even do it on the call because sometimes I can give you the idea, but you won't actually go do it. We're going to talk about gratitude and then for five minutes we're going to write a gratitude letter and then it will be open for questions where people can really talk about things that they're struggling with and other people can learn from it. You can just come every week for half an hour to kind of get your boost of happiness or positive psychology to just sort of keep it consistent. I think of it sort of like an AA meeting for positivity. Emiliya:  I love that Stacey. I remember when I was first starting off as a coach, one of my clients, one of my positive psychology coaching clients had come to me and said in this moment of what she seemed to express as shame, she said, "You know Emiliya, I sometimes go to AA meetings, but I don't have a drinking problem. I actually don't drink. I just really appreciate the community and just being able to go somewhere where you just hear other people's stories and can feel like you connect to people." That was my first moment of going, "Oh my Gosh. That's so true. We don't have places in our communities where we can go to where you just want to connect with other people and that we have to pathologize something being wrong before people are able to get this kind of group support." Stacey:  Isn't that interesting? I think about it and I wanted to do this. It's always been a desire in the back of my mind in that I've wanted to create this place where people could go because I struggle with going to church every week because there isn't a church where we just can go and sit around and talk about positivity and not attach it to anything. So, I've sort of always had this in the back of my mind and with technology today, it's made it so much easier for people to connect, that we can do it virtually. So now I'm super excited about creating this virtual place where people can come live and just connect. Even they don't have to show themselves or anything. They can just listen in. They can get the past episode. Again, the more you feed your brain the positive stuff, it kind of crowds out the negative stuff is what I think. Emiliya:  Absolutely. What are some of the different positive psychology practices that are your favorites? Stacey:  I've been doing vision boards for a very long time. Gosh I would say 15 years. I took a course at some workshop and was introduced to them long before The Secret. Actually, I knew about The Secret before Oprah did. Emiliya:  Now that's a secret. Stacey:  Exactly. I'm a big fan. I'm a big fan of, "What you think about you bring about." Certainly that. I'm a big fan of primers, which I kind of think of what a vision board is, but attaching something to another activity, a habit that you do all the time. So, thinking of five things that you're grateful for every time you brush your teeth. I'm a big fan of post-it notes around the house, on the refrigerator like, "You are amazing. You're more beautiful than you know." I also certainly, the one, the biggest, the greatest, the all-time, if you could do anything that's going to change your life, is just gratitude. I started that practice when I was in a little 600 square foot apartment in debt, injured, single, miserable, overweight, and I just was in bed going, "You know what? I just have to start." It was, "I'm grateful that I have a bed to sleep in. I'm grateful that I have a refrigerator and it has food in it." Then, my life has just exponentially grown to where I just have so much to be grateful for, so I use those opportunities to talk about how much I'm grateful as much as I possibly can Emiliya:  Thank you Stacey. I'm curious. I know that you've been through so much in your life, what are some obstacles that positive psychology has helped you overcome? Stacey:  That is a really good question. I think the biggest one is the negative mind chatter and having a growth mindset. I'm a big fan of Carol Dweck and I use that with my kids, but I also use it in my own, just my negative mind chatter and really challenging that. Certainly I watched the positive psychology course from Harvard that Tal Ben-Shahar taught, which anybody can watch and it's really amazing, but his permission to be human has really helped me forgive myself for when I'm frustrated or angry, but you know what? It's the human condition and I think that, that is one of the most helpful things in knowing, is accepting our human-ness. Emiliya:  Earlier you mentioned that you also work with your own son with special needs and that you support parents in doing the same. I'm curious, what within our skillset has been helpful for you because this is typically an area that we don't see a lot of when it comes to positive psychology, traditionally? Stacey:  I think, one of the biggest challenges for parents with kids with special needs is that they spend so much time on their children and getting them the right services that they need and support that they need and it's really a battle. You have to know so much. It's a lot to navigate and we have a lot of support groups in how to navigate an IEP and how to work with the school and how to get great services. What we don't have is, or what I found is, we didn't have the support to rebuild ourselves and refuel ourselves. So, I made it clear early on that this group was not about our kids directly, but it was about how to build up our own strengths and refuel ourselves to be able to serve them better and help them. It really is where we talk about the strengths of the moms and where they are at their best and reminding each other of all of the great things were doing even in a day where everything seems to go wrong, we're still doing a great job. So, it's really just trying to remind them that even when it's hard, they're doing amazing. Emiliya:  Anything else that's on your mind in the field of positive psychology today or how you're applying positive psychology that you'd love for our listeners to learn? Stacey:  Again, I think that it's the consistency. I think TED Talks are such a gift. You know that's how I found positive psychology, stumbling on Marty Seligman's talk, certainly Dan Gilbert and his talks on stumbling on happiness and Angela Duckworth on grit now. There's just so many really great talks and if I were going to give one piece of advice to somebody that really is saying, "I want to make a change and I want to grow," I'd say replace the things in your life that aren't adding really great value emotionally and psychologically. For example, I used to spend a lot of time watching Real Housewives, okay I admit it, but I replaced that time with these TED Talks and with the books on happiness or watching the Harvard class from Tal Ben-Shahar and it really changes you because your time is the most valuable thing that we have and our attention is just ... There's so much noise out there in the world. So, to quite that noise or change what the noise is that's coming in, to positivity and positive things that you can do to improve your life, it literally will change your life. So, just surround yourself with it. Honestly, the minute you start looking at positive psychology and the books and the TED Talks and the courses, it's like drinking water from a fire hose. There's just so much great stuff. I mean like, really, I just want to quit my job, move to an island in Bali where I can just study all the time because there's so much great stuff and you just keep digging at it and just keep it playing in your head. Emiliya:  I love that Stacey. I can see your character strengths of love of learning and curiosity and interest in the world just pouring on out of you. Stacey:  Yeah and I love, again, in translating it. I am not the first. There's a million people out there doing it, which is awesome, and I try to go on Instagram and whenever I find other people that are change agents, either through affirmation cards or their art or any way that there's just so many people out there doing it and we just need to go find them and keep building them up and supporting them and saying, "Yay, we just are going to keep sending out that vibe and we're all going to touch different people in different ways." I live in a world where everybody wins, so it's so great to have so many change agents out there. I love that word that I'm pretty sure you came up with, but I love it. Emiliya:  Thanks. I definitely didn't come up with it, but we definitely integrate it. One of the things I want to highlight in what you just said there, Stacey, is that so many people who are inventors on our model, one of the challenges that they can sometimes go through is that they are so passionate, they love this information, and by definition, because we love to share, we also love to learn. To teach is to learn and so because inventors are constantly loving to take in information, they also can get stuck, because one of the things that can happen is they take in so much information, that they think to themselves, "One, where do I start? I don't even know where to begin, there's just so many good things out there that I want to share." They get information constipation, where there's so much that they want to share with people. That's why I love how you've really taken to heart, the understanding that, "I'm going to keep it simple. Happier by the Minute. Little digestible chunks at a time," which is so important because people can get so overwhelmed by just the quantity of information that's out there that they want to share with the world. Then the second, is what you said around how inventors can get stuck because they think to themselves, "Well it's already been done. There's already a TED Talk on this and Barbara Fredrickson talk's about that." They key to being a successful inventor is recognizing that while, yes, other people might have been expressing this topic, you are still unique in how you express it or the specific audience that you want to bring this too. So, focusing on moms of children's of special needs or focusing on high school students that are going on into transition and focusing in much more specific ways is so important to being a successful inventor and actually getting this work out into the world. Otherwise, what happens is, people just hold on to it and they're likely to just keep it to themselves without ever having shared it. Stacey:  100% and I am totally guilty of this. You definitely, there is so much information and there's so many great people, that there is a, "Where do I fit in?" We've talked about it in positive psychology calls and workshops, is this impostor syndrome too, that, "Who am I to talk about this? I don't have a PhD, I didn't go to Harvard, I didn't get my masters from Marty Seligman." I'm absolutely guilty of that, which is a great opportunity to use my positive psychology tools to say, "That's okay. There is a place for everyone." It really is, I use it every day and then I also have the challenge of, "Do I do webinars? Do I write a book? Do I do workshops? Do I teach this in businesses? To kids? To moms?" That really is a real challenge where I think tapings that have come out of The Flourishing Center that are really helpful, is one, coaching. So either using a coach, and I met so many great people in the coaching class that we help each other. So, you definitely need support. You need someone to hold you accountable and help you get curious. Part two is just to have an attitude of yes. Just start with yes. Some of these things are just coming to me and the mom's of the kids ask me to put on the group and then the school found me and asked me to do the talk. I just say yes and say, "Which one starts feeling like me?" And, "Which one felt great? Which one do I want to expand on?" Just have that attitude of yes and get curious and have a bias to action as they say in designing your life. Just say yes and do lots of different things and then it will get clear. Emiliya:  Beautiful Stacey. Thank you so much. If people wanted to find out more about who you are, what you're up to, how they can continue to learn from you, where would they find you? Stacey:  HappierbytheMinute.com so it's super easy. Instagram is HappierbyMinute, somebody else has HappierbytheMinute, they stole my thing, but they can find me on Instagram and Facebook, but Happier by the Minute is where you can find me and hopefully lots more fun things to come. I'm just so, so grateful to The Flourishing Center and I'm not trying to do this plug for you, you can edit it out, but I really am just so grateful that you just opened me and thousands of other people to this world that is just changing lives. You've touched me and then I touched five people and they touched five people. It definitely has an amazing rippling effect. So, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you for all you're doing. Emiliya:  Aw, thank you Stacey and thank you for what you're doing. Together we're working to make the world a better place and there's a lot of need out there, so we just all keep doing our own part and thank you for doing yours. So much love to you Stacey, look forward to connecting with you and thank you for being our guest. Stacey:  Oh, my pleasure. Thank you. Emiliya:  Visit www.HappierbytheMinute.com to learn more about Stacey and her projects in getting positive psychology out to the world. Curious how you too can become a positive psychology practitioner? Check out our website, TheFlourishingCenter.com and check out our Certification in Applying Positive Psychology Program. We're located in 12 cities across the U.S. and Canda as well as online internationally. We'd love to share this information with you and help you spread Flourishing to others.