If I ask you a question like how fast can a child learn how to read in a classroom,
scientists change the answer to how fast does the average child learn how to read in that
classroom and then we tailor the class right towards the average.
And what I posit and what positive psychology posits, is that if we study what is merely
average, we will remain merely average.
Maybe we can glean information, not just how to move people up to the average, but how
we can move the entire average up- at our companies and schools worldwide.
What we're finding is it's not necessarily the reality that shapes us, but the lens through
which your brain views your world that shapes your reality, and if we can change the lens,
not only can we change your happiness, we can change every single education and business
outcome at the same time.
90% of your long term happiness is predicted not by the external world, but by the way
your brain processes the world.
What we found is that only 25% of job successes are predicted by IQ. 75% of Job successes
are predicted by your optimism levels, your social support and your ability to see stress
as a challenge instead of a threat.
Here's how we get to health: we need to reverse the formula for happiness and success.
Most companies and schools follow a formula for success which is this: If I work harder,
I'll be more successful and if I'm more successful then I'll be happier.
First, every time your brain has a success, you just change the goal post for what success
looks like - you got good grades, now you have to get better grades, you got into a
good school now you have to get into a better school.
And if happiness is on the opposite side of success, your brain never gets there.
And that's because we think we have to be successful then we'll be happier.
If you can raise somebody's level of positivity in the present, then their brain experiences
what we call a happiness advantage.
Which is your brain at positive, performs significantly better than at negative neutral
or stressed.
Your brain at positive is 31% percent more productive than your brain at negative, neutral
or stressed.
You're 37% better at sales.
If we can find a way to becoming positive in the present, then our brains work even
more successfully.
Because dopamine, which floods into your system when you're positive has 2 functions: Not
only does it make you happier, it turns on all the learning centers in your brain.
We found that there are ways you can train your brain to be able to become more positive.
We've done these things and research now, and every single company that I've worked
with: Getting them to write down 3 new things that they're grateful for for 21 days in a
row: Their brain starts to retain a pattern of scanning the world not for the negative,
but for the positive first.
Exercise teaches your brain that your behavior matters.
Journaling about one positive experience you've had in the past 24 hours allows your brain
to relive it.
We find that meditation allows your brain to get over the cultural ADHD that we've been
creating by trying to do multiple tasks at once.
And finally random acts of kindness are conscious acts of kindness - we get people, when they
open up their inbox to write one positive email praising or thanking someone in their
social support network.
By doing these activities, what we found is that we can reverse the formula for happiness
and success and by doing so create a real revolution.