E134 – Positive Thinking (w Tina Hallis)

and James. music. Hello. This is James, and this is Jane,

and here we are again with another episode of a world of work podcast. One of our favorite topics coming up. Jane, what are we speaking about, and who are we speaking to, not

just one of our favorite topics, one of our audience's favorite topics as well. So we are going to be talking about positive thinking, and we're going to be talking with Tina hallis from the positive edge. Uh, she is a positivity Catalyst, and we're talking to her over in the US in Wisconsin.

Okay, so here we are in the main body of today's podcast, and we're going to be speaking about one of our favorite subjects. Today, we're going to be speaking about positive thinking and exploring the world of positive psychology a little bit more to help us do that. We've got a fantastic guest joining us today from estates. We've got Tina hallis, who is a speaker and author and really an all around positivity catalyst, who's really immersed in this subject and going to share a lot of her insights, as well as some some practical things we can do to to bring a bit more positivity into what we do before we get into the subject. Though, Tina, would you be able to introduce yourself and say a bit more about yourself and your background and what you're focusing on to the

audience? Yes, thank you, and thanks James and Jane for having me today. I am super excited about this. Yeah. So I kind of have a strange background. Maybe I have a PhD in bio organic chemistry, maybe doesn't seem really related to the work stuff, but lots of experience at the corporate level, and spent, you know, 20 plus years in biotech, but then in 2011 I discovered positive psychology, and I was like, Oh My gosh, here's a science that we can actually use in our daily lives, that can help us be happier, have higher quality life and and I was hooked, so I went back, became certified in positive psychology through tal Ben Shahar, the whole being a what Institute, and left my career As a scientist and started my own company so I could bring this just amazing, life changing information to more people into organizations,

brilliant and you know what we love to speak to people who have scientific rigor and scientific background in what they did. The whole evidence based approach to these topics is something that we're really passionate about. Because, if we're honest, there is, at times, a tendency to drift towards maybe unsubstantiated claims in relation to certain aspects of a field that we we we explore. So that whole evidence based is really exciting for us to start off, would you be able to say in a few words what you know, positive thinking, or positive psychology is, and and talk a little bit about how that that it's built on a scientific background,

yeah, um, when I first heard about this, it was interesting. It was, you know, the famous father of positive psychology, Marty Seligman, learning from his books. But this whole idea of, you know, psychology, for years was sort of focused on, how can we help people who are struggling, who are suffering, who are sort of on that, you know, farther end of just mental illness. And then in like 1999 or so there discovering that, why don't we focus more on studying those people who are thriving, who are really just doing so well with with obstacles and getting through challenging times easier, you know, greater resilience. And so it's really about how can we sort of use our mind and our thoughts and our emotions to serve us to be tools that help us be more successful, live happier lives? Because, as we're going to talk about a lot of times, these things tend to work against us, and that's sort of a default mode that we'll get into later. I

Yeah, brilliant. So if we think about some of the, I guess, the key things, or principles, underlining, you know, positive psychology, what is it? Is it that sort of complex magical thing? Is it fairly simple? What are some of the high level key principles? You think permeate across the different practices and evidence and research around positive psychology? Yeah, I think, I think two of my biggest

takeaways from from two principles, if you will, that just were very surprising to me and made a huge impact on me. And one of those is, first of all, that we are naturally wired to focus on and to dwell on and to anticipate all of the problems, the dangers, the bad stuff. For me, that was like, Oh my gosh, wow. That explains so much, you know, just understanding a little bit more about the psychology and even the neuroscience of how our brains work, that this survival instinct is super strong, it's super fast, and it's like automatic takes no effort, no attention, no energy on our part. And I would say that the second principle that is sort of, I think the good news around that part is that we have the power to override that survival instinct, that we can build up our mental muscles, so to speak, and build the areas of our brains that help us shift our thinking and get out of that survival instinct so we can really intentionally choose what's the best response, what are the best actions, words, thoughts that will be most helpful? And so I think, you know, the way I like to talk to people about it is, positive psychology is sort of the science of, how do we get better at shifting that thinking? And then there's so much research about that. And then the benefits, you know, when we can do this, when we can shift that thinking and override that survival instinct, where not only are we happier, right, but we're more resilient, we're more motivated, we make better decisions, we have better interactions and relationships. There's just all this great research showing that it's worth some effort.

Yeah, you know, fundamentally, I'm sort of in the School of people who I think are utilitarians that say, or that believe that a lot of a purpose in life and the end goal in life should be to create a fulfilling and happy existence. And other things are a proxy for that. And a lot of the work around positive psychology sort of shortcuts to that stage. So, so we get that resilience, we get other benefits, you know, increased physical health, increased lifespan, things like that. But, but we also, my sense, is, get a more contented state of existence, which I think is a fantastic goal in itself. And we'll speak a little bit in a minute about the impacts of positive psychology and positive thinking on teams and performance and things like that. When you started your last statement there, one of the things you talked a bit about was sort of a neuroscience of this, and a phrase that people might have heard is neuroplasticity. And sometimes people talk about positivity and using our brain is a bit of a muscle, right? We need to exercise this. Could you elaborate on some of that a little bit? If that fits with your understanding, yeah, yes.

Again, the whole neuroplasticity was one of those huge light bulbs that I just loved to talk about. And I think, you know, they we hear about neuroplasticity even related to things like people who've had strokes, and how different parts of our brain can step in and do different functions after, you know, things get damaged and and the idea that we can actually take this neuroplasticity and use it to not just, you know, recover from, you know, mobility and things from, from accidents and strokes, but we can use this to help have a more positive existence less stress, that we can train our brains. We can physically modify those neural connections in a way that serves us. And I forget now, maybe you remember who coined the term self directed neuroplasticity. Have you heard that? I'm afraid I don't know. I haven't heard that. I'd love to know. Oh gosh,

yeah. And this idea that if we can pay attention to our thoughts and get better at some of these strategies for shifting our thinking, we are actually reinforcing new neural connections that as they strengthen, it makes it easier right to notice the good stuff, to override that survival instinct to, you know, rethink before we go and say something we're going to regret. So it's this idea that we can modify, physically modify, those neural connections in our brain to just make it easier to have more happiness at work, less stress, greater satisfaction in our relationships. Pretty exciting stuff.

Yeah, it's really exciting. Some of the things that I've read and you know, I'm very much a lay person in this neuroscience field, but some of the descriptions I've read effectively describe. Of our neural pathways as channels, and that, you know, the more we use a channel effectively, the deeper that channel gets, and the easier it is to to, you know, fire neurons down those channel, fire, fire impulses down those channels. So, so we're kind of just building highways within our brain, building these broader and deeper channels so that we flow more in ways that are associated with positivity, which I think is, um, which I think is really helpful on, on, you know, the subject overall, one of my good friends up here in Edinburgh, very much involved in this type of field. And I was having a walk and a coffee with him a couple weeks ago, and he had a new sort of analogy that he was using that I really like, that doesn't necessarily quite fit exactly with this. But he says a lot of people think that they, as people and their brains, are kind of the screen of a movie, and they are on the receiving end of all these things around them, and they're that screen. But in reality, in his view, he argues that instead of being that screen, we are really the projector, so it's almost what we project out creative reality, not is what outward, not what is outwards and coming in. And I think that ability to influence and shape our own thinking, for me, fits very much of a core of positive psychology. What do you think about that? Yes,

and I think the more we can help people understand this, that it's, it's like it's, if you don't, I mean, why did I have to wait to be in my 40s and 50s to understand this stuff? Right? I think getting this out as early as possible so people can start to understand that, if we just live in our default mode, we live in our thoughts. We don't step back and observe them. We don't step back and think about what we think about, which is, I kind of love that term. It's a little bit creepy, right? But it's so true that we have to practice being the observer and not just the participant. Because when we can do that, when we can say, Oh, look at there I go, getting mad, because here's a great example, when my husband and I go for walks. We live in a very isolated country area, so there's not a lot of cars. But when a car would be coming down the road and you can hear them, my husband would always say, a car is coming. Like, let's get over to the side of the road. And for the longest time, that would trigger something in me, like, what do you think I'm stupid? Right? You don't need to tell me a car is coming, you know, I can hear it, but to just step back and notice that reaction, right? I can be like, Oh, isn't that silly? Look at that silly survival instinct of mine kicking in, trying to protect me, you know, getting defensive. And when we can seriously, just become that observer and notice it and label it. It's, it can be hilarious. I can have so much entertainment from the that survival instinct, words and voices in my head that are just, you know, entertaining.

Yeah, it's brilliant. And that whole, you know, the sort of frontal cortex and the neocortex, and the more recent parts of our brain are so designed to help us with that, you know, risk analysis, or the calculating side of stuff, and that in our in our dialog that we have that sort of gives voice to our fears and our more amygdala aspect of Our brain. It's, it's pretty fascinating when, when we talk about, you know, positive psychology, you've, you've talked about some of the benefits. Have you got any specific examples that you've seen of research that calls out key benefits, and anything more you could elaborate on, on benefits for individuals, if they were to, you know, adopt a more positive approach?

Yeah, it's, it's, it's wonderful when you start digging into the research. I love to always go all the way back to Professor Barbara Fredrickson, reports about, you know, her ideas of how, when we can be more positive, have more positive emotions, right? Because what we think about impacts how we feel, right? So it kind of starts with our thoughts and well, it goes back and forth. Our emotions affect our thoughts too. But when we can get better at this mental fitness and we can have more positive thoughts and emotions, it activates our learning centers so we can learn better. It helps us stay calm. It helps keeps the cortisol at bay so we're not in that fight or flight. You know, whole reaction system too long. I mean, it's important, right? We need it, but we tend to get stuck there way too much. It helps us with our relationship, so we can be more patient and empathetic and understanding, and it gives us that ability to really pause, to choose our response. So we're not just always in that reaction mode. I don't know. I've often found it fascinating how people say, Well, you know, you said that when you were mad, so you must mean that that must be what you really think. And it's like, no, that was just my defense mechanism kicking in, and first thing that came out of my mouth. That's not how I really feel. That was just my my fear based survival mode kicking in how I really feel is what I say when I'm calm and authentic and in my true self, my best self. So I think that can be very helpful, that what people say when they're mad, you know, try not to take it personally. It's not necessarily for sure what, what they're really thinking and feeling.

Yeah, and it's so much in there to think about and unpick. And I just, I want to move on a little bit and ask about how this shows up in teams, because it's really interesting to think how positive thinking might work when we're thinking in a team context.

Yeah, you think about the reason we form teams in for a project in a company is because we want to synergize people's talents, get their different perspectives, you know, their different strengths. We have a problem that we want to we want to solve or address, and so when you bring people together that have these different backgrounds and different expertise, it's, it's can be also a recipe for some, for some clashing and some some challenges that way. And you think about, if you are in that survival mode, you probably are more concerned about your own your own reputation, your own status, your own control of the situation, versus what's better for the team, what's better for this project, and when you can shift your thinking and be in that creative mode. It helps with cooperation. It helps sharing ideas and being comfortable with that. The whole psychological safety thing of people being able to feel like they can really, truly share their ideas, ask real questions, give honest feedback. I mean, our survival instinct does not like any of that, because that makes us vulnerable. It makes us unsafe. People could hurt us. They could steal our ideas. They could make fun of us, they could just blow us off. So with teams, this whole idea of having that that positivity skills and that strong mental fitness really amplifies the potential of success for that team.

And if I were to, I don't know if I was to go and spend the day with a team where positive thinking was really, really present in that team. What, what would it look like? What would I see? What would be different?

I love that because you think, but let's start with the opposite, right, like, because I think we've probably all been parts of situations or teams where there isn't a lot of positive skills present, maybe, and there's a lot of, you know, maybe backstabbing or subtle ignoring and that whole judgment thing where people are quiet, people don't hold each other accountable, they don't offer feedback. But if we were in a team meeting where they're discussing a problem and people are feeling comfortable sharing their ideas, then other people could say, yes, yes, Jane, I really like that idea. Here's what I like about and could we also, or what if we also, you know, we would build on each other's ideas, and then people would be feeling free to all participate and jump in and share their thoughts in a very open, safe environment, not worrying about judgment, feeling embarrassed, people stealing their ideas. It would be such a much more open forum, where we would be truly tapping in to these people's expertise and perspectives and having so many more possibilities, so many more potential solutions to choose from. And you can just imagine then the opportunity to find the best one is faster and easier. So

yeah, that makes total sense. I want to also ask you. And we were looking, we were looking at something the other day, and we were talking about some of the elements around psychological capital, and particularly hope and optimism. And we were talking about this idea, particularly around optimism, of how powerful is. And I was wondering if you think that's something that relates to positive thinking, this idea that you enter into solution, enter into sort of challenges thinking, Yes, we will find a solution for this. Or yes, we will be able to progress that. And how, how much do you think that relates to the idea of positive thinking, the impact that can

have? Oh, yeah, optimism is a big one for me too. I you know, if we've ever been around a pessimistic co worker or a pessimistic boss, you can definitely feel and see the difference, right? Oh, that's not possible. That won't work. We don't even need to talk about it. We've never done it that way. People just, you know, pessimists shut other people down. There's just no opportunity. To explore. Because, for sure, right? Some of these ideas, they'll never work, but we can feed off of that, and it can spur new ideas and and when we just leave that possibility open to discussion and exploration, we're going to just get again, so many more possible solutions. But that pessimist, nobody wants to share ideas with a pessimist, because they just they make everything feel impossible. They make it feel like everything is just going to lead to a dead end.

Yeah, I think we may have some listeners who recognize that. We may even have some podcasters who recognize that that feeling. What do you so you're in this team, right? And actually, there's a, there's there's good levels of positive thinking. We're seeing this positive as if you're leading that team. What? What does it what do you think it feels? How is it different? Do you think? Do you think it makes your life easier? Do you think it's harder because you have to maintain it? What is it that you think is different when you're leading or managing a team that way, where you have created the space for positive thinking?

Yeah, that that is such an interesting question, because, of course, it can depend upon a number of things, right? If, if you're starting off with people who are already pretty you know, have pretty good positivity skills, pretty good, mental fitness, it's a lot easier. And as a leader, you know, you are a catalyst. You are going to impact how the other people bring their ideas, how they, you know, bring their attitudes. So being that ripple as a leader has you have a huge influence over your team members. So first of all, it's just like being authentically optimistic, being authentically positive, showing a can do attitude, being open, listening, all of those things can be that really influenced the team members. But then also, I think what's important is, when you do have those members who are maybe resistant, it's like, how do you create that environment, right? How do you help people, first of all, get to know each other, so they feel comfortable with each other, understand and appreciate their differences, their different backgrounds or different personalities their different strengths. How do you help people recognize that differences are interesting, right? Instead of bad? Let's, let's get interested and curious about each other, make those connections, build that psychological safety. And I mean, the problem is, is so many teams feel like there's no time to do this. We have this project. We have to get it done now. We don't have time to get to know each other. We don't have time to build the psychological safety. But what they don't realize is that it's like taking a shortcut. When you do that, you're you're putting the time up front to get the map out and plan your course, to find the shortest way, versus just getting in the car and starting to drive and hoping you find your way there in the process. It's really that shortcut that's going to make the whole process faster and easier and more fun, and that's going to build engagement, that's going to build loyalty, that's going to just have all kinds of wonderful positive ripples in itself. So hmm,

yeah, that sounds like a good place to be. I think I want to ask you a little bit about about the role of context. And because so far, we've been talking about sort of positive thinking in a fairly sort of standard way, we haven't thought about anything specific. Is it? Is it significantly harder in negative situations. And what does it do in negative situations? So where a team is experiencing, I don't know, additional stress or additional additional pressures on them, and it's becoming, you know, things are not going well, for example, so they're in a relatively negative environment. Is is it harder? Does it help more?

Great, great question, yeah, because that is kind of, especially with everything that's going on in our in our world, that's kind of the current state for a lot of companies, organizations, there's a lot of pressure, right? A lot of stress, and a lot of change and uncertainty. So for sure, because when we can be building that mental muscle, when we can have more optimism, it makes us more resilient. The studies are so clear on this. You know, we not to say that we don't get stressed, but we bounce back faster, right? We kind of like, oh, that's bad news. Oh, this is, feels tough. This is, you know, a tough situation, but then we get over it faster. We can clear our mind and think, think better about possibilities of how to move forward. And in a team situation, it can be helpful to just sort of have that call out that elephant in the room and say, Okay, we're. We need to talk about this, and we need to just sort of get it out of the way so we can move forward. It's, I love this analogy where they've talked about like, like, pain, physical pain. You put your hand on a hot stove and it hurts. Well, that's important, right? The pain is there to tell you to take your hand off the hot stove and quit hurting yourself. And the same thing with the stress and the pressure and the frustration and discouragement, those negative emotions serve a purpose. They're there to give us a signal that we need to stop. We need to maybe take some action to change something, and to listen to that and to take notice of that information, and to maybe, you know, again, stop doing something that is not working. So, yeah, when, when things are tough, we need this more than ever. We need this to recover more quickly, to get back to thinking more clearly and connecting with people to support each other through this, rather than bringing each other down, because the negative emotions are extremely contagious too, right? And that just then creates this downward spiral,

yeah, and you mentioned, it's interesting. You mentioned that phrase contagious there, and I want to talk to you a little bit about and this is possibly from, from an experience I had, personally, I worked in a team once where what you described was really present, like it felt like a team that that definitely met the description that you've had around, like lots of positive thinking, being present, but it was in an organization where it was sadly lacking elsewhere. And so I wanted to ask a little bit about, what if, in those kinds of situations, what, what if any impact there is like, do you think it's possible that if one team's got it in an organization and they're really happy, healthy place, and they're doing it well, that it's transferable to other teams, or do you think each team is like an individual challenge, and it's sort of almost completely separate? Well,

that's a great, great question, because I think it depends a lot upon you know, are some of the people? Because sometimes people are on multiple teams, and so maybe they're on a good team and they're on a bad team, and they're like, hey, you know what? We do it this way, and this other team, you know, can we, can we bring some of that here? And I think it depends so much on the culture of, are the leaders open? Are they paying attention? Do they even see that people want to be on this team and nobody wants to be on this other team, or this team is so much more successful and gets more done, and this one just seems to, you know, just stagnate in its progress, but I do believe that as leaders, we do create that micro culture within our department, within our team, and we can have so much influence and sort of create that protective bubble when there is a lot of other maybe Negative culture and negative teams, and then you hope that we can plant those seeds that people can see what's happening, and they get curious and they want to know more. And people come talk to you, and they try to figure out, what are you doing different and and hopefully the team leader can bring it up in executive meetings, upper level meetings, and say, hey, you know, just pointing out that all these people really like being on our team, and here's what we're doing different. So I always, as an optimist, I always think there's potential for it to spread, and that under the right circumstances and with the right push and the right seeds being planted, it can so I would say, Yeah, I think let's again, try to be those positive catalysts.

When, when we talk about subjects like this, I often feel that we we explore them in a couple of different ways. So so we often talk about, I guess, sort of a moral or of a human case for doing things, and we've covered a lot of that when we've looked at benefits for individuals and how it feels, and then we've touched on some of it with impact on work and creativity and performance and all that type of stuff. The other lens that we sometimes bring to these conversations is the business case, if you're going to put it down in a paper to try and, for example, get approval to spend on this type of stuff in organizations. And I guess my question for you is, if you were to have a listener who said, You know what, I think all this positive thinking, positive psychology is brilliant, I'd like to have more of it in our team, in our organization, but I need to put the business case to our senior leadership to get sponsorship for it. What kind of things would you suggest that they put in about sort of business case argument for this type of type of work and change?

Yeah, that's that's awesome, because there's definitely sometimes the numbers people want to say, Hey, is it worth the investment? What's the ROI on this? And again, the studies coming. It over and over are showing that whether it's sales, whether it's customer service, whether it's manufacturing, whether you're looking at quality control, all of these things improve when you can boost your people's positivity skills and when they can spend more time and positive emotions. You know the benefits of being more motivated, being more resilient, they show up in the numbers. Now, again, it's not like, it's like you have an initiative. You bring in a speaker, you bring in a consultant, you you do some book clubs around this, and suddenly, bam, you flip a switch. It takes time, like with everything, but when you start moving in that direction, you start seeing the payoff in so many different ways. You just think about, take customer service, for example. You can tell your people, treat your customers well, you know, show them that you care. But if you're if your people are stressed or in a bad mood or discouraged, it comes through. They can pretend and try really hard to be happy and supportive, but it works so much better, and there's less burnout and it's it's more sustainable when your people actually are feeling good and encouraged, and it's easier for them to have the customer feel that authentic, deep concern and caring for their, you know, their issues.

But emotional labor of pretending to be happy when we're not really is is a drain. You know, it's really depleting. Is something to do over time. I'd like to think a little bit about, I guess, for practicalities of, how do we create more positivity in ourselves and in our organizations, and sort of embed this so that people have got some thoughts on some of their next steps. And I'd like to start by, I guess, reflecting on the fact that quite often, when I've been involved in change programs, and particularly looking at things like culture change in teams or organizations that but leaders cast a really long shadow, you know, and I guess one of my questions is, do you think it's, it's, it's possible to create, you know, positive thinking bottom up? Do you think it needs to be top down? Do you think it works both ways? Have you got any thoughts on that role of of a leader in shaping the positivity or otherwise, of a team. Yes,

like you said, the leader casts a long shadow, and the leader has so much influence. And they like they say, people don't quit jobs. They quit their boss. So those those bosses, if we can find a way to help, have that manager training, get those leaders started. I know some of the companies I've worked with, I've started with the managers, and I get them versed in this vocabulary and these strategies and how to, you know, talk about it and boost their own positivity, and kind of the the whole science behind it, why it matters. And once they're in that, then we can go and we'll, we'll train more of the front line people, and then the managers are already there to support it and to encourage it and to talk about it. And then when it's culture wide, when you have when you have it be part of meetings, when you have it be part of performance reviews, when you have events and book clubs and stuff that that focus on it, it gets embedded in everyday life, right in the in the conversations, in the purpose and the mission statements, and then it's so much more a part of the company. I'm kind of, I guess I'm straying away from the question here. I don't

know that's that's all good. You're talking about all kinds of things that we are going to lead on to. But that was helpful to reflect on, on that, that role within leadership, of being able to to absorb some of these skills and to absorb these different ways of thinking, and then through that, bring them to teams. I guess, if we think about us as individuals, right? This is a like skill as much as it is a work skill, and and many of us would be, you know, would benefit from being better at our own positive thinking. What are some of the well, I'd like to know what some of the things are that we can do to improve that, but I get the sense that this is also a bit to do with changing our behaviors and our interpretations. And then maybe it's not about, you know, giant changes, but maybe it's a little bit about small, small, sort of recurring changes, but, but create habits, and then things like that as well. Could you talk a little bit about how we as individuals could bring more of this positivity into our everyday life? Yes,

yes, that, that is the key part. And I have a couple different formulas that I teach when I do my my talks, and really the foundational piece of all of them. And then, then I can talk a little bit about how to make that foundational piece easier, but the foundational piece is really about pause, notice, choose that, whether it's our internal voice of what's going on, you know, the kind. Environment we're creating because we're reliving some some past argument or some past frustration when things didn't go well, or we're in the moment and we're externally being impacted by it, when we can pause and just have that, that brief, brief moment of stillness to check in and become that observer, to realize, okay, right now, I'm immersed. I'm participating in this, this moment, internal or external, but I'm going to step above and I'm just going to notice how am I feeling, physically, mentally, emotionally, let me check in with what's going on with that survival instinct. And then once I'm in that notice stage. That's when we have the power to choose, hmm, what is the best way for me to show up right now? What should I truly be telling myself? What conversation Do I maybe need to have with myself? Because those internal conversations are some of the most important ones we have, and maybe it's also what, what is the behavior, the external words that I'm going to say right now? And I, I often think that we get confused like, well, I don't even know, right I'm I'm mad. I should just show them that I'm mad. I should just react. This isn't fair. They don't have any right to speak to me like that. I need to call them out on that. But when we can pause and notice, and then we can say, What would my best self do right now, if I was calm, or if I look back on this tomorrow, or in a week when, when it's a little bit more distant, what am I going to wish I said or did? How could I best serve not only myself in this situation, but maybe another person, the team, the project. And I will tell you right when you were talking about as an individual, this journey of many baby steps, like you said, that I've been on since 2011 when I discovered positive psychology has made me a totally different parent, a totally different spouse and friend, I think of how I am not perfect by any stretch, but I am so much better at checking in before I open up my mouth and make things worse or say something I'm going to regret or do something that makes the situation worse. And now it's easier, right? As as I we can talk in a minute about how to make this easier, but when we when we can make our life easier by baking situations better. It it just has these huge payoffs, both in our relationships and our happiness and our stress level. It's I'm so grateful for that, that day when I first discovered positive psychology,

it's yeah, you're those who listen to us regularly will know that we feel quite similarly about finding useful and applicable models and information to help us bring more of this into our lives, because it's it's so powerful, and I guess I just makes me think we have a lot of people who listen to this podcast, who are in leadership positions in organizations, and they they believe this stuff, and they want to create environments for their people, where their people and the People working for them and with them can can more confidently think positively more of the time. And I guess I wanted to ask, What do you think organizations can do to create a culture or an environment where more of this is possible? Are there things? Are there things that they can do? You know, they can't, they can't do it for people, but can they do things that will mean that it's more likely, or that it creates an environment that's more conducive to positive thinking?

What you said at the end there is so true. Can you create an environment that makes it easier, right? Makes it more conducive to be our best self, to bring that positive attitude to be more patient, tolerant? And here again, I love looking at the research. I've sort of narrowed it down to what I call kind of the five key principles when leaders, managers, bosses can emphasize, and I'll just list off these five, like, help people focus on their purpose. Like, what is the purpose and meaning of their work? To really emphasize that what they do matters and is important, whether it's for the internal customers external customers. So there's a whole purpose piece, and then there's the autonomy piece, giving their people a sense of control, a sense of having influence over their work and over how they do it, but also like you know, that they're listened to, that their ideas matter, that they can impact the company, even so, there's purpose, autonomy, and then relatedness. Relatedness, can they relate to the people they work with? Can they relate to their customers? Can they relate to the values of the company? Me, Do they feel that connection, that there's alignment, and then mastery, like the skills that they have, the expertise that they have, do they get to use them? Do they get to put their strengths to work? And do they get to improve and learn new things? Do they get to build those masteries? And then the fifth one I mentioned is that positive environment, both the physical environment the psychological environment. Is it? Are there co workers? Is their boss, you know, promoting positivity, or are they blaming people? Are they throwing people under the bus? Are they, you know, always in a bad mood, always pessimistic. So there's kind of, to me, those five key pieces that leaders and managers can look at to help again, build that environment that just makes it easier. You can be the most positive person, and I bet there's listeners out there that can relate to this, and you get yourself in to either a company or a boss that makes it really hard for you to use your good attitude and tends to suck the life out of you and drain your energy, right? That that is a terrible recipe.

Yeah, that's lovely. There's those five, five key points are fabulous for anyone who's looking to understand or improve the way their their teams work. Um, in the interest of time, I'm about to wrap us up. But just before, I guess, one question, if somebody wanted to go away and do a little bit more to improve their positive thinking, and you were just going to give them one tip to either, you know, something they could do every day that would help with their positivity, or a place to learn more. What would you say? Where would you send them, well, or what? Typically, I have

a ton of resources on my website. I every week I send out a weekly positivity tip, and I actually created a special resource for your listeners, so I would make it easier for them to find a bunch of resources. If you go to the positive edge, fabulous.net so the positive edge.net, backslash, W, O, W, for World of Work. There are some free resources there. And, you know, check out my my website for more stuff. But I also have on that page for your listeners, they're actually going to get a PDF access to my book with 80 short different positivity tips. So I normally sell my book for you know, it's on Amazon, but here they are going to have access to a free PDF of the entire book and all 80 tips in there. And then again, on my website, I have lots of short positivity tips resources to some of my other favorite positive psychology books and websites? Yeah, you really have to find what works for you. We're all different. But if you don't mind, I would love to share one of my favorite super fast hacks to quickly boost your mood. That would be brilliant. Yes, let's do that. And

I'm here in the States, in Wisconsin, and we have Dr Richie Davidson at, I mean, just down the road from me, and he is a renowned positive psychologist into mindfulness. Works with the Dalai Lama, and in his book The emotional life of your brain. He talks about this trick where if you do a fake smile, if you only use your mouth and your cheeks, nothing happens, because they can use functional MRI to monitor the parts of your brain that light up. But if you also, when you do your fake smile, make sure you activate those muscles around the corners of your eyes like you do in a real smile, right? That's where those crow's feet come from. Then they see that the part of our brain associated with happiness and feeling good lights up. So this is like a super fast way. You're on the phone, you're in your car, you're writing, you know, the subway or whatever, and you just a little small, fake smile activate the corners of your mouth. And I challenge you to see if you don't notice a difference in how you feel and how you think,

that's brilliant. I love that. That sounds like such a simple, quick thing to do, and I'll definitely be doing that. And in fact, I've been smiling quite a lot through this. So So that's excellent. Okay, well, I think I'm going to bring this to an end. We've got the website in detail, which is brilliant, and thank you so much for creating that PDF access. We'll definitely share that. So I think it's just time to say goodbye. So a heartfelt thanks for me,

and from me, yes, thank you both. I love what you do, and it's so important. Thank you for spreading the word on all of this.

Okay, you are back with James and Jane. That was our conversation with Tina. We said at the beginning, Jane, that's one of our favorite subjects, and it totally lived up to the building. There's so much great. Very helpful, practical, important information contained within this field. I thoroughly enjoyed that. Did you have anything that particularly stood up for you? I think one

of the I mean, there's many reasons I like this topic, and there's many reasons I enjoyed that conversation, but I guess the single biggest thing for me is the smallness of what we need to do to make an impact. I love so the tips you gave at the end, for example, is it's so simple, it's so small. And really, I mean, it's big in the sense that to do that, you need to believe this stuff. You need to buy in you need to look at the evidence. You need to say, Yes, I believe this is going to work. But then the actual action you need to take is small, right? There are little things that we can do every day in our lives to improve our quality of life. And for me, that is that if I could, if everything else in the world was that simple, then, you know, that'd be pretty amazing. Wouldn't it

be brilliant? And, you know, just you speaking about that made me open up an app I've got on my phone that's that's to do with, you know, the Power of Thinking and Well Being from an online course I've been doing, and it lists a few things here as activities that really help with it. So I'm just going to read a few out. So it talks about our sleeping. It talks about meditation and mindfulness exercise, connecting with others, acts of kindness and kindness, does things like lower our quarters or levels, and brilliant stuff like that, making time for gratitude and savoring and being in the moment. So those are some of those types of things that were less specific than that smiling example, but all those types of things help build those neural pathways that improve positivity. So hugely powerful. Fully recommend embracing some of those things and bringing them into your routines. I was just going to add extra little thing, but I think it's a great takeaway, which is this, this concept of what's known as metacognition, this ability to stand above your thoughts and to know that you know your thoughts don't just happen, but, but we are, you know, sort of beyond our thoughts. We can see them, we can observe them, we can choose and we can change them, and we can influence them. And knowing that we can influence all those things, and that through neuroplasticity, we can influence, for you know, the the firmware of our bodies, and that that shaping of our brain for these better outcomes is really powerful. And for a change, I thought I would leave us today with a little bit of a quote, because I felt like that was a nice thing to do. So I'm going to delve into the past and quote Hamlet, who says there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. So there we go, the power of positive thinking brought to you by Shakespeare from many centuries ago. So I guess it's goodbye for me