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3 Ways to Spread Success and Happiness

In Before Happiness: The 5 Hidden Keys to Achieving Success, Spreading Happiness, and Sustaining Positive Change, Harvard University-trained researcher Shawn Achor builds on his international bestseller, The Happiness Advantage. In his new book, he identifies ways to positively change your own perception of reality as well as other people’s world, making them not just happier in the moment, but more engaged, more motivated, more alive—permanently. In this condensed excerpt from Before Happiness, which premiered at number two on the New York Times Best Sellers list, Shawn discusses inspiring others to share the happiness you’ve achieved. Positive inception is not just about spreading happiness but about helping others see the reality in which success (and happiness) is possible. Inception is about better helping others tap into their multiple intelligences and cognitive resources, and thereby to create happier and more successful teams. That involves the mastery of three key strategies. Strategy 1: Franchise Success. The first step in creating a positive inception is to identify one aspect of a reality—yours or someone else’s—that, if replicated, would help other people harness their drive, motivation and multiple intelligences and become more successful. Research shows that to be contagious, these “success franchises” must be based upon a simple, easy-to-replicate idea. Strategy 2: Rewrite the Social Script. Every aspect of our work and home life is guided by hidden social scripts. But certain social scripts wield more influence on our collective behavior than others. Social psychologists have found that the more positive one’s social script, the greater one’s ability to create positive social influence. Strategy 3: Create a Shared Narrative. Finally, for positive inception to occur, you need to appeal not just to reason but to emotion. One of the best ways to plant a positive reality is to construct a narrative around some shared emotional experience, positive or negative. Interestingly, my research shows that creating a shared narrative around past adversity or failure is one of the best techniques for creating positive inception. The goal is to help you transfer your most valuable reality to your teams, colleagues, friends and family. In doing so, you will create a renewable, sustainable source of positive energy that motivates, energizes and summons the collective multiple intelligences of those around you. Without inception, our own reality becomes less stable. Strategy1:Franchise Success(Make it contagious) What is a success franchise? “Success franchising” is the technique of getting others to replicate a positive cognitive or behavioral pattern that continually leads to success. Any success that can be observed can also be repeated. We all have patterns in our lives, but the key is to create and repeat patterns or behaviors that continually lead to success. This principle sounds obvious, yet we choose the wrong realities to replicate all the time. Until we learn how to replicate our positive reality, we will be forced to waste valuable resources trying to reinvent the wheel each time. If we want to be successful, we need to learn not only how to replicate our own most valuable reality but how to spread it. When we look around, it seems that we are all unique individuals with different personalities, thought patterns, beliefs, values and learning styles. And while this is technically true, it misses an important point. Our personalities may be distinct and unique, but our brains are highly interconnected; they are linked on a wireless mirror neuron network. Mirror neurons, as readers of The Happiness Advantage may remember, are those receptors in our brains that cause us to unconsciously mimic the actions of those around us. But mirror neurons are so key to positive inception because our thoughts and perceptions are what dictate our nonverbal actions. Researcher Paul Marsden at the University of Sussex wrote a great review of this research showing that not only yawns and smiles are contagious but also emotions like stress, anxiety, optimism, confidence, boredom and engagement. Thanks to our mirror neuron network, we are hardwired for inception. Perhaps my favorite example of social contagion is the Dancing Plague of 1518. According to reports, it began when a woman in Strasbourg, France, started dancing in the streets and could not stop. Eventually she collapsed from exhaustion. At first people thought she had had a psychotic episode and that was the end of it. But then she started dancing again. In the next few days, thirty other people also experienced this same uncontrollable need to spastically dance. The authorities had to get involved because four hundred villagers were compulsively dancing day and night... and not out of joy, either. This was manic, desperate dancing, resulting in heart attacks and, incredibly, deaths. Such stories show how easy it is for us to “catch” the mindset of even a single person. But people rarely talk about the positive contagions that have occurred throughout time: mass decisions to abolish slavery, global declines in smoking rates or widespread nonviolence movements in India or Egypt. Positive outbreaks also begin with a single dancer. You have the power to franchise positive habits in your home or workplace.Strategy2:Rewrite the Social Script (Make it positive) No one has ever had to tell you that you mustn’t lie down in elevators or pluck a french fry off a stranger’s plate. These unwritten rules that govern our social interactions are known as social scripts. To be sure, social scripts play a valuable role in our society. The problem arises when these scripts infect us with negative realities that lessen our likelihood of success. That’s why the second technique for creating positive inception is finding ways to rewrite the social scripts. Three Men Make a Tiger According to psychology researcher Bibb Latané from Columbia University, every social script has three components: the strength of the message (S), the immediacy (I) and the number of sources (N). So the degree of social influence a script exerts is determined by the following equation: S+ I + N = Social Influence. The stronger and more important the message is, and the more people delivering it, the more influence it will have. When I was in divinity school, I studied Buddhist and Confucian thinking. One of my favorite Chinese proverbs was “Three men make a tiger.” The story behind it went something likethis: On a starless night, four men are sitting quietly. All of a sudden, a wild pig runs past, knocks over one of the men, and escapes into the night. The fallen man yells, “Tiger!” Two of the other men, panicked, also yell “Tiger!” As a result, the whole village awakes, and chaos erupts, as the three men tell the harrowing story of the tiger attack. A hunting party is created to rid the village of the terror. The pig, calm now, watches impassively from the trees as the villagers begin to build wooden fences and worried mothers keep their children inside their huts until the “tiger” can be killed. The (false) reality of a tiger on the loose has come to dominate the social rules of the village. Sometimes, depending on the cultural norms in your family or at your company, it can be difficult to increase the strength of a positive message without being written off or ostracized. And it is hard to increase the immediacy without sounding hysterical or shrill. So the best approach is to increase the N, the number of people buying into the positive message. Like a politician securing his or her base, focus on the low-hanging fruit—the like-minded, positive people—first. Once you have increased the N, you will have more influence over the middle-of-the-road group. Then once you have planted the seeds of positive change in both those groups, you can work on the most intractably negative people. Many people identify the most negative people and then throw all of their energy and resources into trying to get them to see more positives. That is a doomed strategy. It’s far better to first find people who are more likely to tip to positive; only then, once you have increased your social influence, should you go after the cynics. Change your face When it comes to social interactions, many individuals forget how big a role facial expressions play in transferring our realities. Worse, they often fail to realize when their face is communicating the complete opposite of what they actually feel or believe. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve looked out at a member of an audience who looked as if he were just hating my talk, then had him come up afterwards and, with the same sour expression, tell me that the talk was life changing. It’s as if we were all walking around talking in a foreign language that no one understood. A simple but incredibly powerful way to ensure that your nonverbals are positive is one that I learned from a manager. Here’s the secret: take a look at the person talking to you. Thanks to our neural network, we unconsciously mirror the people we are with. So if the person you are talking to is not smiling, seems fatigued or disengaged, or seems anxious, chances are your nonverbals are not as positive as they need to be. If you don’t like what you are seeing, change yourself first and see if the other person follows the new script. Change your Script from Tragedyto Comedy The best script writers are those who write comedies, not tragedies. Humor wields more social influence—and is therefore more effective in creating positive inception. Humor is attractive because it is a signal of cognitive fitness. Your brain must be flexible, quick and sharp to comprehend or create humor. You could say that humor is a marker of an individual’s ability to add vantage points. But what is it that causes people to find humor in some realities when others find only irritation or embarrassment? Not surprisingly, the answer lies in positive genius. Psychologist Barbara Fredrickson’s “broaden and build theory” suggests that experiencing positive emotions expands people’s momentary “thought-action repertoires,” those paths to using our intellectual resources in the most productive way. That’s a fancy way of saying that your perception of reality determines your actions: if you see a path to a positive reality, your brain will be quicker to see humor in negative events. Thus, when you have a negative external world at work, you can use humor as a strategic tool to help others see a more positive reality.Strategy3:Create a SharedNarrative (Make it Meaningful) There are few projects I’ve felt more proud of than getting to lead the Everyday Matters campaign. This is a joint partnership between the National MS Society and the forward-thinking biomedical giant Genzyme to create a happiness movement for people diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. This illness literally tears apart your brain’s ability to communicate effectively with the nerves in your body, resulting in recurring bouts of bone-deep weariness, pain andparalysis. Enter the champions: 1,200 brave individuals dealing with the physical, emotional and social challenges of MS applied to be part of a program in which they would use some of the techniques from my last book, The Happiness Advantage, to improve their coping skills and even reduce their symptoms. Then, from this large group, we chose five individuals who would become our champions of inception. We didn’t select these people because they were the happiest, but rather because their stories would show the rest of the MS Society and the world that happiness is a choice. We spent a weekend going through positive psychology findings and laying out a plan for their next few months with their happiness coach, Michelle Clos, who also has MS. From June to October, they were filmed by Kristen Adams, an Emmy Award-winning TV producer (who also has MS), and the film was shown to the rest of the society. I could have spoken to those 1,200 brave MS patients for hours about the science of happiness, and it wouldn’t have had nearly the effect of those videos on the website (everydayMSmatters.org). That’s because to better plant the seeds of a positive reality in a group of people who are confronting a certain challenging experience, you need an emotional narrative delivered by individuals who share that experience. Creating a shared, positiveexperience If you are successful at creating a positive reality but incapable of sharing it with others, then that reality will be limited and short-lived. But by utilizing the techniques of positive inception you can create a renewable source of positive energy for you and the people around you. We have discussed the three big keys to positive inception: franchising, script writing, and creating a shared narrative. The key to mastering them, though, is to let go of the myth that you cannot change other people. We can change people, but only by planting the seeds of a more positive reality. So remember, if you want to successfully transfer your positive reality, you must make that reality contagious, influential and meaningful. Once you have done that, you have become a master mental architect, capable not only of creating positive genius but of spreading it on a massive scale. The farther and wider you spread positive genius, the more potential you’ll be able to unleash. Once you have amplified the collective intelligences of your teams, companies, families, and communities, there is truly no limit to what you can achieve. Reprinted from the book Before Happiness: The 5 Hidden Keys to Achieving Success, Spreading Happiness, and Sustaining Positive Changeby Shawn Achor. Copyright 2013 by Crown Business, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company.

Self-Care

Choosing Happy

Once upon a time, the Peanuts gang sang to us about “Happiness,” describing it as “finding a pencil,” “knowing a secret,” “telling the time.” Today, the alternative rock band The Fray describes happiness as “a firecracker sitting on my headboard.” Even the very source of definitions, Merriam-Webster, fails to offer perfect clarity, with a definition of happiness as “a state of well-being and contentment.”Perhaps the true meaning of happiness will always remain elusive—probably because it is not a one-size-fits-all sort of thing—yet, we can tell you with utmost certainty one thing that happiness is: a choice.You need only look to the recent worldwide recession for proof. While some greedy CEOs were busy lamenting the loss of benefits and bonuses, other Americans were facing lost jobs, lost homes, lost dreams. But it didn’t kill their spirits or their smiles, as they refused to be victims of their circumstances. Instead, many of these people were downright happy to still have their health, their families and their lives. They chose happiness over unhappiness, refusing to let the latter get the best of them.Now that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel and the economy is on the rebound, it seems more and more Americans not only want happiness but also realize it is within reach. At Harvard, where studies show an average four in five students suffer from depression, one of the most popular courses is positive psychology. And books centered on happiness quickly jump to the top of The New York Times Best-Seller list, including Tony Hsieh’s Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion and Purposeand Gretchen Rubin’sThe Happiness Project.As Ann Hampton Callaway sings, “It’s hip to be happy”— and isn’t it about time? Of course, this doesn’t mean we should forget the lessons learned in recent years or that we shouldn’t sympathize with people still feeling economic burdens. But, if you’re reading this, you survived one of the worst crises in recent history, and that’s certainly something to celebrate.In fact, it’s not just hip to be happy; it’s an inalienable right, according to the founding document of our country. And the exact wording—“the pursuit of happiness”—is apropos, as happiness is a state that we must constantly strive to achieve. But you can catch it—if you choose to try.Happiness Is… a Physical ReactionWhile the jury may still be out on the definition of happiness from spiritual and emotional standpoints, recent science has made huge breakthroughs in pinning down the physiological definition of happiness.InBuddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love & Wisdom, neuropsychologist Rick Hanson and Dr. Richard Mendius focus on two questions: “What brain states underlie happiness, love and wisdom?” and “How can you stimulate and strengthen these positive brain states?”Only within the last 40 years has the scientific community accepted the theory of neuroplasticity—that the brain can change over time. And that philosophy is at the heart ofBuddha’s Brain:“We can actually use the mind to change the brain. The simple truth is that how we focus our attention, how we intentionally direct the flow of energy and information through our neural circuits, can directly alter the brain’s activity and its structure.”Much of what changes the brain over time are our experiences, so Hanson and Mendius argue that if we embrace and focus on positive experiences instead of negative ones, these will become part of the landscape of our brains.“Every time you take in the good, you build a little bit of neural structure,” they say. “Doing this a few times a day—for months and even years—will gradually change your brain, how you feel and act, in far-reaching ways.”They also point to the powerful effects of meditation, which activates the parasympathetic nervous system in several ways, including “withdrawing attention from stressful matters, relaxing and bringing awareness to the body.” In the long term, regular meditation can actually increase gray matter in key parts of the brain, in turn improving “psychological functions associated with these regions, including attention, compassion and empathy.” It can also lift mood, decrease stress-related cortisol, strengthen the immune system and help a variety of medical conditions.If you’re puzzled about those four out of five depressed students at Harvard, so was Shawn Achor, a student and later a teacher at the Ivy League institution. But he focused on the one out of five, “the individuals who were truly flourishing, to see what exactly was giving them such an advantage over their peers. What was it that allowed these people to escape the gravitational pull of the norm? Could patterns be teased out of their lives and experience to help others in all walks of life to be more successful in an increasingly stressful and negative world?”His findings areThe Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work. Through his exposure to and research in positive psychology (one of his mentors was Tal Ben-Shahar, the professor of the aforementioned psychology class), Achor concluded that the popular belief that success leads to happiness is actually true in the reverse, “that happiness leads to success in nearly every domain, including work, health, friendship, sociability, creativity and energy.”From a physical standpoint, Achor says this is because “our brains are literally hardwired to perform at their best not when they are negative or even neutral, but when they are positive.” Achor cites Barbara Fredrickson’sBroaden and Build Theory,which states that positive emotions “broaden the amount of possibilities we process, making us more thoughtful, creative and open to new ideas” and “help us build more intellectual, social and physical resources we can rely upon in the future.”The biological explanation is that feeling happy releases dopamine and serotonin, which “dial up the learning centers of our brains to higher levels. They help us organize new information, keep that information in the brain longer and retrieve it faster later on.”Happiness Is… Self-ReinforcingWhenPeanuts’Lucy and Linus sang about the simple everyday activities—“climbing a tree” or “learning to whistle”—that can bring happiness, they were actually onto something. As Hanson and Mendius write inBuddha’s Brain,“Small positive actions every day will add up to large changes over time, as you gradually build new neural structures.”That’s what Rubin discovered inThe Happiness Project,which has the subtitle,Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle and Generally Have More Fun.One dreary day on a city bus, the wife, mother and writer realized she wasn’t focusing on the important things in life and decided to spend a year making her life—and herself—happier. But, since she couldn’t uproot her existence for some Walden-esque sojourn, she committed to taking small steps.“Making little changes in your ordinary day can have a dramatic impact on the happiness you feel on an everyday basis,” she says. “Be mindful about your life and your choices. [These changes have] to be manageable.”Over the course of a year, Rubin found that the smallest things made the biggest difference. “For example, I started my kids’ literature reading group, and I started my own blog,” she says. “I have been struck by the number of people who say that making their bed made a huge difference, and that is about as small as it can get. If they make their bed, they start out the day on the right foot.” She also found these seemingly minor accomplishments had a snowball effect, boosting her mood and building momentum to achieve even more positive feats.Tony Hsieh also knows how important the little things can be. As CEO of Zappos, he helped grow the online company from almost no sales in 1999 to more than $1 billion in gross merchandise sales annually—and he counts company culture as his No. 1 priority.InDelivering Happiness,he outlines how guests on the Zappos headquarters tour in Las Vegas (yes, they offer an open tour of their offices to the general public) are likely to see anything from “a popcorn machine or a coffee machine dressed up as a robot” to “employees dressed up as pirates, employees karaokeing, a nap room, a petting zoo or a hot dog social.” After all, one of the company’s 10 core values is, “Create fun and a little weirdness.”“Our belief is that if you get the culture right, most of the other stuff—like great customer service or building a great long-term brand or passionate employees and customers—will happen naturally on its own,” says Hsieh, who was named 2009SUCCESSAchiever of the Year primarily because of these principles.Jamie Naughton, who leads Zappos’ Cruise Ship Operations Department within Human Resources, agrees. “I think it matters a great deal if employees are happy because happy employees tend to do better work,” she says of the “culture extras” she administers, such as employee recognition programs, parties and events, community involvement and employee communications. “Zappos takes happiness seriously, and it creates a more positive work environment, less absenteeism—people aren’t having the Monday blues because they’re excited about being at their job.”At the end of her yearlong experiment, Rubin was sold that happiness is indeed voluntary—and always within reach. “I really am happier,” she says. “After all my research, I found out what I knew all along: I could change my life without changing my life. When I made the effort to reach out for them, I found that the ruby slippers had been on my feet all along; the bluebird was singing outside my kitchen window.”

Kids play skiprope on Morro Strand State Beach

Self-Care

Boost Your Mood: 23 Ways to Up Your Love of Life

When we have a legal issue, we call in a lawyer. When the pipes burst, we ring up a plumber. When tax time rolls around, we schedule an appointment with our accountant. So why, when it comes to one of the most instrumental aspects of our personal and professional lives—being happy—are we so remiss about deferring to the experts? To help you make up for lost time, we consulted a squad of qualified sources, from lifestyle coaches to licensed psychologists, who were only too happy to share their insights and ideas about how to put—and keep—a smile on your face and a spring in your step. After all, shouldn’t happiness be a top priority on your daily to-do list?Happiness 101Gregg Steinberg, author of the best-selling self-help bookFull Throttlesays, “Happiness in everyday life is all about mastering our emotions. You can be miserable even when you are successful, and you can be happy even if you are not successful. Your emotional mastery is key to your happiness.”Steinberg, who is a tenured professor of human performance and teaches a course called “Mental Health and Happiness” at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tenn., coaches people to develop an emotional toughness that will help them achieve their best possible state and to create effective emotional habits so that you will return to your best state under pressure. One of his favorite tips involves dealing with colleagues who drain you and create unhappiness. “To change this [dynamic], I tell people to make up a story about the colleague so that they see that person in a more empathetic and compassionate way. For instance, for a colleague who is very annoying and is constantly needing your attention, you can make up a story about how that person never got any attention at home from their mom and dad as a child, so they seek out attention elsewhere to make up for this deficiency. With that story in mind, you will see the colleague as less annoying and you will be happier and less drained.”Retrain Your BrainAt 19, Joseph McClendon was broke and living in a cardboard box. Depressed and ashamed, he felt he had nothing to live for. While riding his motorcycle one day, he contemplated swerving into oncoming traffic and ending it all. But then, in the blink of an eye, the semi-truck in front of him blew a tire, and everything changed. McClendon remembers the incident in his new book,Get Happy NOW!“Seconds before, I wanted to die. But now I had no choice, and I watched in horror as a 100-pound chunk of flying, jettisoned rubber propelled backward toward my head. A part of me welcomed the irony and an end to my pain, so I braced for the impact. But instinctively my physical reflexes kicked in and I ducked. The chunk missed my head, but it hit me in the shoulder hard and knocked me off my bike, sending me cartwheeling like a rag doll…. Life has a way of shaking you up.”From that moment, McClendon realized he wanted to live. That awareness initiated the transformation of a once-homeless man into one of the top performance coaches in the country, with a client list that includesFortune500 executives. In this latest book, he explores happiness—“a fundamental element of life that so many humans are missing.”Here is one of many exercises in the book—this particular one “designed for clarity and focus.” Get out a pen and give these three areas some thought:1. Take a moment to think realistically about where you are and what you want to change. Think about the things that stress you and detract from your success. If it’s paying bills late and accruing hundreds of dollars of late fees as a result, be open and honest with yourself about why you avoid looking at bills…. If you have problems in business or in a relationship, write them down. The point of this exercise is to honestly understand where you are, in order to navigate out of it.2. I’m successful in many areas, but the things I’d like to work on to be happier overall are: _____________.3. I could be much more understanding, patient or focused on certain things. I could increase my character traits (patience, love, giving, joy, discipline) and become better at: ______________________ .Now, with these insights in mind, you can move forward to solutions, and one small step at a time, implement habits that result in a happier you.Another exercise McClendon recommends, substantially shortened here, helps you replace negative thoughts with positive ones the instant those rotten thoughts crop up. So if you’re at work and you find yourself thinking, I suck at numbers. I can’t do this, immediately replace that put-down with one of McClendon’s favorite positive phrases: I freakin’ rock!Gratitude = A Better AttitudeMelanie Greenberg, a licensed clinical and health psychologist who has aPsychology Todayblog called “The Mindful Self-Express,” believes that writing a gratitude diary is one of the “ingredients of a healthy, balanced life.” Yeah, you’ve heard it before; that’s because it works. Here’s her advice for a new approach:1. Find a notebook that either has an attractive cover or that you can decorate yourself with a picture that inspires you.2. At the end of each day, take 15 minutes to write a gratitude entry.3. Begin by reflecting on all of the people and things that helped you or brought you pleasure that day. It might be the sight of a beautiful flower, the sunshine, the taste of good food, a joke or call from a friend, a hug from your spouse or child, a creative project, exercise, or an organizational tool. You might be grateful to yourself for getting an important project done.4. Close your eyes and focus on the feelings of gratitude that these things bring you. Really breathe and absorb the feeling of being helped and supported.5. Now write a diary entry that expresses your gratitude for these things. You may choose to make a list of items or pick just one or two to focus on. Write a sentence or paragraph, draw a picture, make a collage, paste a photograph, or write or print out a poem, song or prayer.6. At the end of each week, read over your diary entries and add any other thoughts or insights that may come up. Think about how being grateful has helped your health, well-being or relationships that week and record that.7. At the end of the month, review the whole journal, noting any changes in happiness that you observe.Start ’Em Out YoungOf all of the life lessons we teach our kids, one of them should surely be how to be happy, and Educational Insights has made it all that much easier with the brand-newThe 7 Habits of Happy Kids. The game, which promotes “playtime that lasts a lifetime,” was inspired by TheNew York Timesbest-selling book of the same name, written by Sean Covey. “The 7 Habits of Happy Kids Game teaches kids about the underlying principles of true happiness, such as personal responsibility, integrity, the importance of relationships, life balance and service to others,” Covey says. “No matter how old or young, rich or poor, these principles always apply, and no one can ever be truly happy without following them.” As players progress around the 7 Habits game board, they draw cards that prompt them to perform activities based on these all-important traits, such as teamwork or listening (after everyone lists a favorite ice cream flavor, the cardholder has to repeat them back, matching each person to the correct flavor).Dirty Socks and Seat BeltsGretchen Rubin had an epiphany one day on a cross-town bus when she found herself asking, “What do I want from life, anyway?” The result is both a top-selling memoir and a popular blog titled The Happiness Project, where she writes about the tools and techniques necessary to achieve the ideal state of bliss. For one thing, she has started compiling a list of the “bare minimum” things we should do on a daily basis in order to be happy and healthy.“The list doesn’t include major challenges, like ‘Quit smoking,’ ” Rubin says, although she admits this is obviously an important goal.Instead, she chose “concrete, very essential things” to do as part of her everyday routine. As you read them, think about what you would add to this list of self-caring activities.Wear your seat belt.Take prescription medications properly.Go for a 10-minute walk (preferably outside).Put your keys and wallet away in the same place.Take something with you. For instance, drop your dirty socks in the hamper on your way from your bedroom to the kitchen.Charge your phone.Connect with someone close to you.Go to bed in time to get a good night’s sleep.What’s Good Posture Got to Do With It?Who knew simply sitting up straight could make you happier? At least that’s what Michael Mercer, a psychologist from Barrington, Ill., says. Mercer is the co-author ofSpontaneous Optimism: Proven Strategies for Health, Prosperity & Happiness, and maintaining good posture is just one of the five techniques he has come up with for instantly raising your happiness quotient.1. Stand up straight and take big steps. Walking with your shoulders back, your head held high, and taking long, brisk steps exudes confidence and positivity, whereas if you’re slouched over and dragging your feet, you come off as and feel like a gloomy Gus.2. Speak in a cheerful voice. A surefire way to lift your mood is to use a cheery voice. In other words, if you sound happy, you are happy.3. Use upbeat words. Upsetting words are the trademark of pessimists. For example, a pessimist would say, “I have a problem,” while an optimist would turn it around and say, “I have an opportunity to do better next time.”4. Have an upbeat attitude. The chief method for becoming an eternal optimist is to concentrate on solutions, not problems. That way you avoid all the complaining and blaming and focus instead on how to remedy the situation. When you find yourself worrying, focus on this phrase: For every problem, there is a solution.5. Be a good role model. There’s an old saying that goes, “What goes around, comes around.” So keep in mind that when you help someone else, you’re also helping yourself.Serenity NowIn his books The Art of Serenityand The Spirit of Happiness, T. Byram Karasu takes readers on a spiritual journey to self-fulfillment. So it comes as no surprise that Karasu’s recipe for happiness involves a sprinkling of peaceful reflection: “In your mind, always go to joyful places,” advises Karasu, a professor in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at New York’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine.“Everyone, even the most unfortunate of us, will have something joyful in our past. You should write those episodes down in detail, in chronological order. Then find a moment of solitude and visualize those memories and try to re-experience the emotions associated with them. Do it again the following few days until they are fully registered and remembered instantly when needed. Thereafter, take a few meditative minutes each day to evoke one of those emotionally joyful memories. Usually, the first one will bring the person to a good mood; if not, then the second, the third, etc., must be evoked until happiness does set in.”Look for the Silver LiningWhen Aurora Winter’s husband was only 33, he died suddenly, leaving her a widow with a 4-year-old son to raise. Heartbroken and scared, she wrestled with the nagging feeling that his loss was the worst thing that had ever happened to her. But when she allowed herself to wonder if there was possibly any good to come from it, she began to feel empowered. The former film and TV producer’s journey toward a renewed sense of faith, hope and joy is the basis of her bookFrom Heartbreak to Happiness: An Intimate Diary of Healing. Winter has since become a speaker, life coach and founder of the Grief Coach Academy, an organization that works to reduce the time it takes for people to get over similar heartbreak. What she has discovered along the way is that the majority of our pain isn’t actually caused by a situation but rather by our thinking about the situation. “Only 10 percent of our happiness is due to life circumstances,” believes Winter. “About half of our happiness is habitual or genetic, and 40 percent can shift in a moment, by thinking about the situation differently.”To help others dealing with a death, divorce or other painful life event, Winter offers these three steps to faster healing:1. Express your feelings. If you can’t feel it, you can’t heal it. Putting off dealing with your feelings is like putting off dealing with your taxes. They don’t go away, and the consequences just get worse and worse. So have a good cry, hit a punching bag or stand outside and give a good yell.2. Accept the situation and then see how you can best navigate it. Thinking the river should flow uphill doesn’t change its direction. Resistance creates stress. Acceptance empowers you to make wise choices.3. Get support. Again, if you had a broken arm, you would go to the doctor and get it set immediately. Yet often people with broken hearts hesitate to invest in their well-being. Don’t make this mistake. Create a support team of friends and family, or talk with a coach or therapist.There’s an App for ThatIf after all this advice, you feel like you still need some help maintaining your high spirits, consider downloading the app “Healthy Habits,” which promotes the idea that by creating better habits, we create happier lives. “Habits are those little things we do without thinking, the default behaviors or thoughts that help us speed through our day,” says Jo Masterson, a vice president at 2Morrow Mobile, the makers of the iPhone- and Android-friendly app. “That is great if our habits are good ones; however, some of our habits make life harder and less happy—think procrastinating, overspending or gossiping.” The app provides a daily reminder of the healthy but sometimes dreaded habits we should follow. “Start each day by doing the one thing you need to do but dread doing,” Masterson explains, comparing it to “eating that frog.” “Just get it done and out of the way. You will feel both powerful and lighter in spirit.”

Well-Being

Happier Mind, Healthier Body

In 1964, Norman Cousins checked himself out of a hospital and holed up in a hotel room with a bucket-load of vitamins and lots of Marx Brothers movies.He believed that along with the vitamins, laughing and fostering a positive mood would help him beat ankylosing spondylitis, a debilitating inflammation of the spine. Cousins then told his story of recovery in the book Anatomy of an Illness, which helped popularize the notion that positive thinking (and laughter) is the bestmedicine.“People have known for centuries that positive thoughts benefit health, and scientists are now coming up with the research to support it,” says Louisa Jewell, president of the Canadian Positive Psychology Association, who holds a master’s degree in applied positive psychology. “We’re getting a lot more information from neuroscientists who are trying to understand the physiological effects of our thoughts.”Over the years, little by little, these researchers have established how positive thinking can contribute to a healthier body. One example: In 2005, Dr. Dennis Charney, dean of Mount Sinai School of Medicine, examined about 750 Vietnam veterans who had been prisoners of war; he found that those who didn’t suffer from depression or post-traumatic stress disorder shared 10 common characteristics. The primary trait Charney believes contributed to these veterans’ resilience:optimism.A 2008 study by Ruut Veenhoven, a Dutch researcher who’s pioneered research into happiness, discovered that happiness is a predictor of physical health. More recently, Barbara Fredrickson, Kenan Distinguished Professor of psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, found that happiness even influences our bodies on a cellular level. And in 2012, researchers from Emory University found that a lack of positive mental health increased mortality rates for people of all ages.Each study is a different piece of the puzzle of how positive thinking affects the body. With each new study, the picture becomes clearer. Even now we have some revealing and amazing ways happiness provides physiological benefits. Here’s a body-part-by-body-part rundown of this happiness-healthconnection:BrainThink about the biochemical activity in your brain as sort of background music. If those tunes are like the soundtrack to a horror movie, you’ll likely feel a grueling tenseness all day long. But if that music is happy and uplifting, your day will seem easier, and you’ll be able to focus and be less stressed. That music is sort of how mood affects thebrain.As part of a 2009 study, Northwestern University researchers determined that subjects in a higher positive mood solved more problems with more insight compared to those in a lower positive mood. Also according to a 2010 study, increases in mental health, or optimism, predict declines in mentalillness.Being able to problem-solve at work may mean taking a break to get in a positive frame of mind. Think positive, do better at your job. And, there’s also potential for positive thinking to be another tool to help bolster mentalhealth.Nervous SystemMore than merely increasing satisfaction in life, optimism can seep into your nervous system to convey some surprising benefits. Being optimistic can reduce sensitivity to cold and pain, according to a study of 79 university students by researchers at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. To establish a level of pain, subjects had to immerse their hands in ice water. Then a random half of the students were asked to imagine their Best Possible Self, which has been shown to increase levels of optimism. The results revealed a causal relationship between optimism and pain. The students who received the positive interventions felt less pain.Also, researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the University of Florida discovered that more optimistic people rate their pain as less severe. The study examined 140 with osteoarthritic disease and measured responses to heat and pressure.The Dutch researchers believe that positive emotions may be used to provide pain relief similar to medication. And the University of Alabama at Birmingham scientists think that a positive outlook may improve patients’ outlook on future pain and may mean better care through improved compliance with their doctors’treatments.Immune SystemWant to test how much a positive attitude can affect your health? Just wait for flu season. In 2006, Carnegie Mellon University researchers gave nasal drops carrying the rhinovirus or influenza to 193 healthy volunteers. Those with a positive emotional style had a lower risk of developing either condition. In 2005, researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University exposed 81 subjects to hepatitis B vaccine and monitored the antibody reaction among those who had positive and negative attitudes. Those with a positive attitude felt subjectively less sick and not bothered by symptoms. But more compelling, the antibodies of those with a positive attitude were 1.73times higher than those with negative attitudes.Reproductive SystemResearchers from Israel exposed women using in-vitro fertilization to 15-minute sessions of a clown making jokes and doing tricks. The study published in Fertility and Sterility showed that this lightening of mood dramatically increased pregnancy rates. Of the women in the study, 36.4 percent who experienced positive emotions after embryo transfer became pregnant versus only 20.2 percent of those who failed to become pregnant. The positive emotions brought forth from the entertainment may have reduced the stress felt by the women, researcherssuggest.DiabetesThe American Diabetes Association estimates that about 25.8 million Americans have diabetes. And positive emotions may have a place in helping these diabetics manage blood glucose. For example, in a Japanese study of diabetic subjects, one group listened to a dull presentation and the others saw a comedy. The test subjects received identical meals, and the researchers monitored the glucose levels. They found that those who viewed the comedy had lower glucose levels.Researchers from the University of Washington in Seattle also found that diabetes patients who had higher resilience (defined by self-esteem, self-efficacy, self-mastery and optimism) could face worsening conditions better than those with lower resilience. The study of 111 patients with diabetes also found that those with lower resilience had fewer self-care behaviors.LongevityNot only does happiness contribute to a longer life, but it also helps bolster resilience as people age and need to fight against declining health. Several studies have found a link between positive emotions and longevity. For example, Ed Diener of the University of Illinois and Micaela Y. Chan of the University of Texas reviewed studies related to happiness and longevity and found that positive emotions can predict physical health and longevity. In addition, researchers from the University College London discovered through another review of 25 studies that happiness extends the life of healthy individuals and those suffering from chronicconditions.More dramatically, perhaps, happiness not only contributes to a longer life, but happiness enables aging people to maintain high levels of mental health, despite physical limitations, changes in social roles and diminishedstrength.CirculationA good mood may also increase the health of blood vessels. Researchers at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore studied 20 volunteers who were shown 15-minute clips of two movies. One movie was serious, the other a lighthearted comedy. Ultrasound images of the subjects’ blood vessels were taken before and after watching the clips. The results showed that the endothelium, which is the lining inside the vessels, expanded to allow more blood flow when a lighthearted clip was viewed. Such expansion may help keep the endothelium healthier, possibly preventing atherosclerosis, according to the research team.Similarly, a 1998 study by Barbara Fredrickson and Robert W. Levenson of the University of California revealed that movies that provoked positive emotions boosted recovery from cardiovascular activation after test subjects had seen a film that evokedfear.And want to lower your blood pressure? Think positive. According to a 2009 study published in Psychophysiology, positive feelings were associated with lower blood pressure. The study, conducted at the Duke University Medical Center, included 328 subjects whose salivary cortisol, which is known to contribute to high blood pressure, and other blood levels were measured. Then, as they recalled an incident that made them angry and then one that made them sad, their blood pressure was monitored. The study revealed that the levels of waking salivary cortisol were lower for those who more frequently experience positive emotions.Another happiness-circulation relationship: In a study by researchers at the Rockefeller University, those with high positive emotion had a lower fibrinogen response to stress than less positive people. Fibrinogen is a blood-clotting substance produced in the liver. Overproduction can lead to blood clots and thickerblood.CancerAnother field that’s beginning to be explored is the relationship between optimism and cancer. An Israeli study published in the August 2008 issue of BMC Cancer reported that happiness and optimism can play a protective role against breast cancer. The researchers asked 622 women about levels of optimism, happiness and depression prior to their diagnosis of breast cancer. The scientists found a link between the subjects’ level of optimism and their chances of developing breast cancer. Those who were more optimistic had 25 percent less risk of breast cancer.HeartSome of the most compelling benefits of happiness involve the heart. Several studies show that optimism is strongly related to preventing cardiovascular disease. Other studies demonstrate that a positive outlook affects the fundamental source of life: the heartbeat.One of the most compelling of these studies was done by Laura D. Kubzansky, a researcher and professor of social and behavioral sciences at Harvard School of Public Health. In 2007, she followed more than 6,000 people and found that having a sense of hopefulness, enthusiasm and the ability to cope with stress reduces the risk of coronary heart disease. Having such optimism may cut the risk of heart disease in half.Also, being lighthearted in everyday situations may prevent heart attacks. University of Maryland researchers examined 300 people, half of whom didn’t have heart disease. The other half had suffered a heart attack. Using a multiple-choice questionnaire, the study measured how much participants laughed and calculated hostility and anger. Turns out, those who had heart disease had less humor and positive attitude in their lives.Further evidence of the heart-happiness connection is just as compelling. As part of the Veterans Affairs Normative Aging Study, 1,306 veterans had their health monitored for 10 years. During that time, 162 cases of heart disease occurred. The study found that those who were most optimistic had 25 percent less heart disease than the average. Conversely, those who had the least amount of optimism had 25 percent more cardiovascular disease.And in the largest study that shows the beneficial relationship between optimism and cardiovascular disease, the health of 97,000 women was tracked from 1994 to 2002. Known as the Women’s Health Initiative, this study also measured optimism. The results were striking: Those with a positive attitude had 30 percent fewer coronary deaths than pessimists.Doug Donaldsonis a medical writer who focuses on health and fitness. His work has been featured inMen’s Health,Better Homes and Gardens,Men’s JournalandHeart-Healthy Living.

Profiles

Profile: Ed Diener

For a man told in his 20s that “you can’t measure happiness,” Ed Diener has certainly carved a career out of the impossible. Starting with his elegant Satisfaction with Life questionnaire(five questions, each answered with a digit from 1 to 7), to the database generated by the Gallup World Poll, which measures a representative sampling from 95 percent of the world’s population, Ed has mastered the art and science of putting accurate numbers to the subjective experience of human wellbeing.He points out that even so-called hard science measurements, like those of physics or medicine, are not as precise or infallible as people often think. “Our measurements aren’t perfect, but they’re pretty good—on a par, say, with GDP.”He recalls serving as editor of the famous “nun study,” published in 2001, that so clearly linked happiness to longevity over a stretch of some 70 years. An entirely different set of measurements is the stream of accolades he has received lately. “In the past couple of years I’ve won virtually all the awards in psychology—the biggest award from APA, the biggest award from APS [Association for Psychological Science], honorary doctorates and so forth.… It’s more proof that the field has become more respected.”He’s quick to point out that for him personally, the awards are rather incidental. “I mean, it’s nice to get external acknowledgment. But you still better love your work.”It takes no special index to see that Ed Diener loves his work very much indeed.

Profiles

Profile: Barbara Fredrickson

When Martin Seligmanfirst encountered Barbara Fredrickson’s work, he bounded up the stairs two at a time. He blurted out to his wife: “This is life-changing!” Marty says that while his daughter had convinced his heart that positive emotions serve a valuable function far beyond simply making us feel good, “it took Barbara Fredrickson to convince my head.”Barbara’s broaden-and-build theory showed conclusively that positive emotions play a critical role in human development. But that didn’t mean negative emotions had no value. Such feelings as apprehension, fear, and even anger and outrage serve vitally important roles. The goal of positive psychology, as Marty has pointed out, was not to sweep all negative feelings under the rug and turn people into unthinking smiley faces but to “aim for the optimal balance between positive and negative thinking.”So what exactly was that balance?For example, Barbara points out that her “positivity ratio” is closely echoed in the work of John Gottman, the world’s leading marriage researcher, who spent years studying the emotional dynamics between married couples. For marriages that flourish, reports John, the ratio of positive to negative behavior and communication is about 5-to-1. Less than that, and the marriage is in trouble; down to 1-to-1 or worse, and you’re in divorce court.“What I was seeing,” Barbara writes in her landmark book, Positivity, describing the moment when the discovery first presented itself, “was no less than a prescription for life and how to live it. This stunned me. It still does.”

Reading

Library—Profit from the Positive

Profit from the Positive: Proven Leadership Strategies to Boost Productivity and Transform Your BusinessAugust 2013, McGraw-Hill EducationMargaret Greenberg and Senia Maymin set out to write a guidebook that would help people use the research findings of positive psychology. The tools they describe “don’t cost anything, and you don’t need anybody’s permission to implement them,” Margaret says.Here’s why these authors are uniquely qualified to share positivity tools: They met while earning their Master of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) degrees at the University of Pennsylvania, and both are successful business coaches. “Every one of these tools is backed up by science,” Margaret says. Senia says people tell them, “These are really small things to implement—as soon as I’ve tried them, I can see the results.”The book is tightly organized into three parts and nine chapters. Numbered points make the chapters easy to follow. Margaret and Senia hope you take it along on an airplane ride and land ready to make changes.While the book promises to transform your business, the positive principles are tools anyone can use. Procrastinators will find the advice in “Trick Yourself into Getting Started” especially helpful—these tips help you get off dead center. For example, while they were collaborating on the book, Margaret made it a practice to write Senia an email about her progress. In her email, Margaret described as completed things she hadn’t finished, but she found it helped her begin working. (That’s tool No. 2.)Replace “bosses” with “parents,” and you have practical advice for family life. Margaret and Senia encourage a focus on the positive and an emphasis on recognizing strengths over criticizing shortfalls.The discussion guide at the back of the book, the website profitfromthepositive.com and a Facebook page encourage discussion. Senia says, “The learner mindset—the mindset of not being an expert and constantly learning—that’s something Margaret and I wear as a hat, and we really encourage.”These days, Margaret and Senia are taking their knowledge on the road. “Writing the book and researching it is the first phase,” Margaret says. “But now really getting it accessible and mainstreamed and in the hands of people, that’s the whole next phase.”

Karol Nickell with friends in her backyard

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Happiness is Happening!

Welcome toLive Happy.We’re a new magazine, website and resource about a timeless quest: Living a happy life. Happiness is what we want for our children, for ourselves and for the world. Understanding happiness empowers us to make a positive difference in our lives and in the lives of others. It is a constant, renewable source of inspiration, energy and insight. And it’s free!Happiness is a lifelong journey that is different for each of us.We share common everyday happiness like having a good laugh, catching up with friends or sleeping in on the weekend. And we associate certain life milestones with happiness, like graduation, landing a new job, finding true love or becoming a parent. But how we define and measure our own happiness is very personal. Happiness is like a smile.We all have one. But mine is different from yours.Authentic happiness is the kind that lasts.Enjoying a piece of homemade pumpkin pie makes me happy, but its effect is fleeting. Being a wife and a mother makes me happy, and it is central to my overall satisfaction with life. Authentic happiness is linked to our values and priorities. Once we know what matters most to us, pivotal measures of happiness begin to take shape. The importance we place on material expressions of success and happiness diminishes as we look inward and ask the tough questions: Have I been blessed with the love and admiration of family and friends? Do I have spiritual peace? Have I helped someone else get ahead? Have I given back? The questions we choose and the resulting answers help define our authentic happiness.Understanding happiness takes an open mind.We are fortunate to be living in a time when the study of happiness is growing rapidly all around the globe. Led in large part by positive psychologists and their colleagues, this research proves previously elusive correlations, like the tie between compassion in the workplace and the bottom line. It also is breaking totally new ground, like the gene-level impact of positive emotions. Live Happy makes this science understandable and relevant. We report on innovative, cutting-edge research in the contextof real life, authentic issues and common-sense realities.Applying happiness is easy to do and its effect multiplies with repetition.Once we understand the power of happiness, it changes our thinking, actions and conversations. We all know people who make us happy. A few on my long list: My grandmother Evelyn, my sisters, cousins and girlfriends, Juna (our dog—yes, she is a person). And we all know what makes us happy. From my life: Being with my husband, Don, and our kids, Lauren and Alec, biking the Iowa countryside, volunteering, gardening, making a huge holiday dinner. If I imitate these people and repeat these activities, happiness is sure to show up. I know, and research shows, having a happiness hangover is a good thing.Is all this talk about happiness important?You bet it is. Happier people are healthier, more satisfied with life and their relationships, and they live longer. By helping people have a happy home and family life, make a good marriage, find and grow faith, work well with others, experience fun, creativityand joy, and live life well, Live Happybrings the happiness movement toa personal level.We’re pleased, excited and honored to be on this happiness journey with you.We’d love to hear your viewpoints on happiness; your thoughts on this issue and what to put in following ones are also appreciated. Please tell your friends and family about us!

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About Live Happy

Live Happy: Making your world a happier place. Live Happy takes you on a journey to find your authentic happiness in life, at work and at home through inspiring stories and hands-on tips rooted in the science of positive psychology. We area national magazine, website, podcast, line of gifts and apparel—but more than that, we are your home base for happiness. Our mission is to inspire and empower you to act to make your world a happier place. Happier people are healthier, more satisfied with life and their relationships, and more successful in their careers. Research shows that happier people even live longer. And happiness is a journey anyone can take, using the right tools. It starts with just one step. What We Do Our award-winning content offers in-depth features and the latest news on mindfulness, health and wellness, gratitude and resilience—all delivered through fascinating stories about people, whether they be celebrities, authors or ordinary people with extraordinary lives. On livehappy.com, you’ll find your favorite, shareable features from the magazine, plus mood-boosting book and movie recommendations, lifestyle blogs, tech columns and practical advice. You’ll also find our podcasts and Live Happy store—all in one place. Want to share happiness in Spanish? Go to Live Happy en Espanol. Live Happy Now Our popular Live Happy Now podcast launched in 2015 at the top of the charts and features thought leaders such as Shawn Achor, Jack Kornfield, Laurie Berkner and Jon Kabat-Zinn. Listen during your commute, while making dinner or anytime you need a boost of positivity. Live Happy Store Looking for a gift to delight a friend, teacher or neighbor? Or a T-shirt that expresses your radiant positivity? Visit the Live Happy Store today IPEN Live Happy is a proud sponsor to the International Positive Education Network; Live Happy Co-Founders Jeff Olson and Deborah K. Heisz both sit on IPEN’s Advisory Board. Founded by leaders in the fields of positive psychology and education, IPEN seeks to expand the use of mindfulness- and strengths-based teaching in classrooms to increase student and teacher well-being around the globe. Join us for the biennial IPEN Festival. Get Social With Us! We want to hear from you. Your needs, wants, opinions and puppy pics are important to us, and they make us very happy—so get in touch! You can find us on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and Snapchat. What People Are Saying About Live Happy Press Releases Awards In the News Contact Us Advertise With Us The Live Happy Team Deborah K.Heisz,CEO, Co-Founderand Editorial Director As CEO, Co-Founder and Editorial Director of Live Happy LLC, Deborah K.Heiszis responsible for the management and development of the Live Happy business and creative operations. She joins the Live Happy team with more than nine years of experience leading and growing successful startups in the publishing industry and 20-plus years of management experience in a variety of fast-moving organizations. Deborah was the founding Editor in Chief of the current version ofSUCCESSmagazine (2008-2011). Also, asSVPof Publishing, in 2005 she successfully launched a thriving custom publishing business with several newsstand titles. She has also led the development of several multi-language titles, including placement on newsstands in Korea, Japan and countries in Europe. Deborah has a B.A. in English from Texas Tech University and an MBA from the University of Dallas. Her most significant asset is her expertise in starting and developing business initiatives. In prior roles, she has successfully led groups with responsibilities ranging from IT to Marketing to Product Development. What brings her the most happiness in the world is spending time in the great outdoors with her family and dogs. Her greatest source of joy and wonder is watching her three children learn, experience life and ask questions without filter.

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Michelle McQuaid

Michelle McQuaid is a best-selling author, workplace well-being teacher and playful change activator. She is passionate about translating cutting-edge research from positive psychology and neuroscience into practical strategies for health, happiness and success.An honorary fellow at Melbourne University’s Graduate School of Education, her work has been featured in Forbes, the Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, Boss magazine, The Age, Women’s Agenda, Wellbeing Magazine and more.She holds a Master’s in Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and is currently completing her Ph.D. in Appreciative Inquiry under the supervision of David Cooperrider.Michelle lives to help people discover their strengths, move beyond their fears, and finally discover what it truly takes to flourish with confidence.To learn more about Michelle visit www.michellemcquaid.com.

3 Ways to Spread Success and Happiness

Choosing Happy

Boost Your Mood: 23 Ways to Up Your Love of Life

Happier Mind, Healthier Body

Profile: Ed Diener

Profile: Barbara Fredrickson

Library—Profit from the Positive

Happiness is Happening!

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Michelle McQuaid

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