Capitalize on Positive Experiences

Lesson Info

Capitalize on Positive Experiences

All right, Take a C shake it out. So today we are on day number five. This is the wow day. Wow. Now, when you were a little kid, I felt like everything was wow. And that's what we're talking about say, finding that sense of wonder and awe and amazement in the little things. So we started this course with really big ideas, our skills, our chart of happiness, how we're spending our time in the middle part of the course. I'm talking about some of the little things that bring us the most happiness. So this is a little things day which I kind of like just to review. We did our chart of happiness on day One, our mastery, skill, temperature on day to play storming on Day three yesterday you filled out your minimize er chart, and we are on call number five today. This is about a kind of new look at optimism. So we hear about, you know, be more optimistic. Look a life. Look, It's a glass half full. What does that actually means? This is my take on optimism how we do that from a date in a day to...

day moment I'm also gonna be teaching you something called the Five stages of Wow. And I think this is a really fun way to capitalize on our small moments of enjoyment. Lastly, this is about moment to moment joy that really short term, beautiful happiness warm up. So our warm up today, we're gonna actually we're gonna play an imagination game. Are you ready? And at home, I want you to play along to this is built for you. So first, I want you to put down your pens and close your eyes at home. You better be closing your eyes. Don't be looking at me. Perfect. Everyone's eyes are closed. Now. I want you to imagine that you're in a hotel room. Picture yourself in a really sumptuous hotel room. You sit on the bed, you turn on the TV and you start flipping the channels. You pick up the mail, you're flipping to the hotel channel and all of a sudden you find your favorite movie. Your favorite movie is about to start and you sit down. You can watch the whole movie for free. Your favorite movie starts. Imagine those first few scenes in your favorite movie. Those favorite moments. We spend a whole evening enjoying this. Imagine the characters, your favorite scenes, all the different actors that played in that movie. Imagine the songs on the soundtrack. Savor that for just a moment. Now open your eyes. So this little exercise either way, what is your favorite movie was curious what we're missing. Yeah. Back to the future. To the future. Two. Okay. I like it. What else is the favorite movie? What were you imagining? Yeah. All right. You got mail? Oh, yeah. Classic. Yeah, The Big Lebowski. So here's the science of the power of excitement. Just thinking about watching your favorite movie increases your endorphins by 27%. That's a crazy finding, right? Just sitting there, not even watching me. When we just imagining it increases your endorphins. These are showed us the power of our memories. That power of something that have made us have pleasure at one point can continue to give us pleasure even after it's done. Endorphins are these wonderful chemicals that make us feel happy and excited and hopeful. And we know that hope is incredibly important for happiness and optimism. Bottom line here is you don't have to actually take a vacation or be on a vacation to enjoy a vacation. Just anticipating the vacation that's coming, and savoring and reminiscing about the vacation of the past is enough to have you re enjoy that vacation. That's actually very beneficial for us. It means that even if you take one vacation a year, it can give you pleasure all year long. So happiness is mostly the anticipation of event and the memory of it. This is another myth about happiness that I want to bust. We typically think about happiness as in the moment, but actually a happiness is a before and after activity justice as much as it is that individual activity. While we're doing it, we don't think about it that way. Your inner kid. So I was baby sitting my niece, and when I was taking her out to get ice cream, I thought she was most excited for the ice cream, right? The whole point of the journey was the ice cream trip. There was so much joy to be had that had nothing to do with the ice cream, my power windows air in her face. The dog that we drove by the pretty plastic flowers. All these things were giving her joy. The ice cream was great, but there were so many other moments of Wow, when you're with a kid, they're constantly asking questions and later, like, wowed with the world. I want to bring some of that wow back to us. Here's the problem is we're not very wow oriented. We're typically oriented towards achievement, getting things done. Finishing accomplishments, eating the ice cream were not as oriented towards the feelings. For example, I was watching a Ted talk, and this is one of those Ted talks was great. 80 minutes long was about a really powerful topic, and the speaker was hitting his points and he was building this crescendo and it was awesome. And at one point he makes this point and the audience begins to erupt in like a spontaneous standing ovation. And he missed it. The audience was swept up by his speech, but because he was on point to finish his talk and he didn't want or expect the standing ovation till the end of the talk, he kept talking, and there was this moment they show the audience. Robin was like, Whoa, oh, he's still talking. Everyone sit back down the back down. And he missed this moment where he could have had his peak right in the middle, working, maybe Wasn't expecting it, but people were swept up in that Ah, that he delivered. But he was waiting for the end. Right? So I don't want us to miss those high moments the other way that we miss. Some of our moments of wow is we don't like to celebrate, right? How many times have you heard someone say I hate when someone gives me compliments? Right? When someone compliments me, it makes me so uncomfortable or I don't know how to celebrate. You have a big win at work. You achieve something big and you say, What you going to celebrate? Keep working. Maybe I'll go out to dinner because we're very bad celebrating our successes. So sometimes we even have moments of awe, compliments, successes. We have these moments of relaxation time where we just busy ourselves and ignore the moment completely. And we miss these great moments of wow for ourselves. Anyone relate to this, we're gonna pull out the red green cards were in use them again today. I think. OK, so x, Everyone, except one which I'm so glad that you can enjoy those ones. We're gonna learn from you in a second because this is something that was a real big problem for me, where I would try to achieve all these things. I would ignore all my feelings and was onto the next thing. I never stopped to enjoy that moment. I think this falls into two different approaches and this is one thing we learned from the happiest people in our study is the happiest people in our study. They typically had the play approach. So here the two different approaches the unhappiest people. When you talk to talk to him about different parts of their life, they typically always had a wrong or right. There was very little gray area. Either something was good in their life or it was bad in their life. Something went wrong or something went right. They typically thought much more carefully about their choices. They didn't want to get a wrong choice, and they were much more should driven. So I would ask them questions like, Why did you decide to make that decision? Why did you choose that career. Why did you choose to live there? And a lot of it had to do was should, as opposed to wants or desires. And also there was a lot of shame around wrong decisions that shame was constantly pulling on the current happiness, as if to say, You can't enjoy the current moment. You have too much shame about this. You should be worrying about the past now the play approach use when we talk to some of the happiest people. They used different kinds of words when they were describing things we found they had a much more experimental approaches. How I came up with the idea of happiness experiments, they would say things like, Well, I tried it, you know, when it was, it was okay. You know, when I when I video, usually say experience, they would say I tried it or I dabbled in it or I played with the idea, or I was trying something for a while and it didn't end up working, and there was no judgment on that. Working or not working, they tend to be much more curious, and they were excited about more things, so I would ask him about things that they enjoyed and they would physically show me excitement. Oh, I love my ceramics class. My teacher is so funny. I made all these, you know, and they would explain it to you with excitement with the unhappiest people. When I asked them what's the most enjoyable part of your life? They would tell me without any excitement. And I actually think this is because as adults we've been taught, you should be nice and even keel right. Don't get over excited, right? You had parents who tell you don't get over excited, Don't get overly dramatic. They would say, Oh, you know, I really enjoy going to brunch with friends. Really enjoy reading the newspaper, you know occasionally and go on vacation with my husband. Like, Are you reading me a tax list like where? Where is the excitement here? And they would always laugh when I told them that because they didn't even realize they were actually taking away that, except they didn't let themselves go there. And so they were much more excitement and judgment free if things did or didn't work. So what I want to do is I want to go through a couple of red and green cards so I won't get your reading green cards ready on at home. I want you to tweet or write down your answers. He's going to go through a couple of them. So if I were to say, you have to sing karaoke in front of 200 strangers Oh, totally mixed red and green, red and green. Can you get a total mix? We can reframe this. So for those of you who raised Red, I was also a raise red and I thought about seeing karaoke. A. I read this study and it's completely changed my idea about excitement. So this is a study. What they did is they asked students to sing the song, Don't stop believing and they had a software rate their karaoke e for accuracy. How Maney Highness did they hit to get the lyrics right? Do they hit the words correctly? They had one group right before they started singing, Say, I'm nervous and they had the other group, whether they were nervous or excited, say I'm excited. Okay, The results were the nervous group got about 53% accuracy, singing the neutral group that said nothing had about 69% accuracy. The I'm Excited group had 80% accuracy. I find this so surprising because it didn't matter what they actually felt. They were just told to reframe that anxious, feeling their stomach as excitement, taking nervous. But if I z and turning them into excited butterflies, harnessing excitement, I think, is the simplest, most powerful lover we have. That was one of the biggest differences I found in the happy, said Unhappiest. People is the happiest people let excitement into their life. They let it come into the life and they actually exacerbated it like they kind of stirred up their own excitement. They would start talking and they would get more excited as they were talking is if they were riling themselves up, Never seen like like little boys together. You have one little boy and he's pretty excited. You bring another little boy, then they start to, like, really rile each other up. I want us to do that for ourselves, right where we rile are our own excitement, the other experiments. So this don't stop believing experiment was pretty good, but they also wanted to know. Could this work in a more professional setting, right? Not just karaoke. So very, very similar. Set up students were asked to deliver a speech with only two minutes to prepare. A panel of evaluators rated them on persuasiveness and calm and confidence. Now imagine this for a second. You're asked to give a speech on a random topic for two minutes and you're gonna you're gonna be judged on it. I mean, this is pretty nerve wracking experience. Of course they had a one group say I'm excited. One group say they were nervous. And here's what happened. By the way, the Panelists did not know what was happening behind the stage. The 70 group that said I'm excited were rated 17% more persuasive than the I'm nervous group in the control group, 15% more confident, and they spent 29% more time on stage. That means that reframing your nerves as excitement gives you 37 seconds of more courage, right? And again, this isn't We didn't do anything internally, didn't give them a dose of dopamine. They didn't tell them to do a power poser breathing. All they said was, just repeat after me. Say I'm excited. That was it. So let's try this. I want to get your green cards ready. I want to see some excitement. So when I think about my future, I'm excited. That's right. When I think about my goals, I'm excited. What I think about a challenge I'm facing. I'm excited when I have to sing karaoke in front of 200 strangers. I'm excited. So here's what I want to dio the song. Don't stop believing is a great song to karaoke You too. So what I want to do is at home here Creativelive we couldn't We don't want a copyright to that song. So in your 21 day challenge I sent you will link to the video. Don't stop believing. I want you to pull up your computer. Either click on the link or type and don't stop believing in the YouTube. We're going to stand up here in the creative live studio. We're gonna do some karaoke, E Yes, we are. So for you at home, it's going to be silent. But for us here, we're gonna be singing So the already and you're gonna watch a silent When I say go, we're all going to start at the same time, So I want to get your video ready at home. Don't stop believing. And when I say go, you're gonna hit the play button and you're gonna sing along at home with us to Okay. You ready? Get your butt. You ready? We're gonna plus play, Ray. Now I'm out of breath. I don't know about you at home. I hope you're out of breath. You were singing and dancing as we were. I'm sure watching us. I'm silent. Try to sing. That was very actually to watch and see how it might have been better. I I was on a mic. So, so sorry. People in the booth. John, I'm sorry. I think you were probably in that really closely. Okay, So science says we know this singing makes us happy. I already made a singer or your boat. It releases endorphins and improves their mood. And people that sing together share together. So now let's talk about the five stages of Wow. So I think this is about capitalizing on the positive experiences that we already have thes air those moments, those many celebrations that we kind of go. Yeah, I'm excited about that. But I'm not gonna get myself all worked up. I want us to get ourselves worked up about it, right? I wanted to have those five stages of Wow. Now most people know the five stages of grief, right? And I think that we've talked a lot about in the society about processing our negative emotions, and that is incredibly important. But I don't think we talk enough about processing are positive emotions. If we're focusing on grief, we should also focus on celebration. We should also process pride and make it last as long as possible, cause if we focus on the positive emotions and helps build us up for those times, we might have negative emotions. The very first stage is anticipate. So before any positive thing ever happens, you could actually enjoy it just by anticipating it. So for a moment, think about if you knew that you were about to get chocolate, right? If I were to say to you own about to give you the best creamiest chocolate. Your mouth starts to get excited about it, right? It starts till water. You think about the smell of that chocolate that creaminess that chocolate and you are beginning to produce endorphins. The best thing is when you can expect something and actually get it. So I actually do have chocolate for you guys here in the studio. My favorite chocolate See's candy. Kate's gonna help me pass it out because pass it on down, anticipating you shall receive here. Creativelive. I'm like Oprah Chocolate for you, For you, For you go on home. Go get yourself some chocolate. Go in your fridge, ground up some chocolate cause you deserve it after that, anticipate anticipatory experience. So here's the science of anticipation. Okay, when we think of activities or even future plans, that doesn't even have to be a set activity. Just thinking about doing something that increases dopamine in the brain. So dopamine is the pleasure chemical right? It actually is. What we get when we get a gift or eating that chocolate and just thinking about it helps releases that release that dopamine. So just thinking about eating chocolate or watching our favorite movie or taking your vacation makes us happy. Bottom line, we don't actually have to be eating cake to enjoy eating cake. Very is, by the way, anticipating eating chocolate or cake is calorie free. That's a nice part. If you know that you're going to treat yourself something. Don't not think about it. The best thing you can do is if you're on a on a diet or you're watching something you're like. You know what? I'm gonna have birthday cake tomorrow night. The best thing you can do is be like I get birthday cake tomorrow night. That means you get to enjoy it for days leading up to it. And then afterwards savoring it Wasn't that cake so good, right? I wanted to get in the habit of thinking about it. Ah, lot of the times. Adults, they say, Oh, I'm excited about that cake. But I don't want to think about it yet. I can't get myself too excited about it. Actually, that's the best part. There are so many things in life that I think can give us anticipation that we miss. Yes, of course. Vacations and celebrations. As I mentioned, food your favorite meal that's coming up. I anticipate every holiday doesn't even matter If I celebrated. I find holidays. Great moments of wow, right? So thinking about all your favorite things that are coming up. I love giving gifts. Some spent receiving gifts. When I give gifts, I make sure that I'm just as excited for them to open that gift. So I enjoy the shopping of it. The wrapping of it, the waiting for them. Like I, with my husband, has toe when I get him a gift for his birthday. It was just his birthday. I like Line them all up. I put them on instagram. I made people guess what? I was getting him based on the shape and size of the box. So I enjoyed his gifts far more before he ever opened them. They ended up by the way I gave mum and up on anti monopoly game and timber socks. Oh, and bacon toothpaste. It tastes like bacon, actually. Really? So I I enjoyed that before he even opened anything off course. Amazing books. Like, if you're reading an amazing book, you don't just get enjoyment out of reading it. You get enjoyment before you even open it. Oh, I get an hour after work to read a chapter of my book, right? Taking those moments to enjoy them also receiving gifts. I have this gift that's been over here. Is anyone noticed? This gift. So this gift is really, actually has a really good thing in it. And I'm not gonna tell you what it is because I realized that if I kept it on stage the entire time, Every time you look today, you got dopamine. So this gift, the gift of this gift, we will open it, but not today way will open on day 10. Every time you look at it, you get dope. Me. So if you want a little moment of pleasure, just look over there at that gift and it will give you a little bit of dopamine. So I want to hear really quickly. What are you looking forward to in your workbook? I have a little space for this on day five. What are you most excited about? What's coming up in your life And let's not do a happiness experimental about what's just coming up in your life. They're looking forward to it. Love to hear a couple things. Yes, an expo cons conference s So it's kind of like comic con No, I'm gonna be dressing up. What do you wear? Something steampunk, which is like but six Korean Air. Oh, yeah, I was gonna be like, Oh, gosh, you know what, So so that's a great example of there is actually so many little moments of celebration before you can get there thinking about your costume shopping for your costume. Think about your makeup for the day, Right? Planning your like We're going to eat during the conference. That's all. Those are all little celebrations of pleasure. I love it. I want to see your steampunk outfit when you get together. Agree? All right? Yes. I'm going to a conference in London. Ah ha. And I realize when you're going through that I have been completely mired in the tasks, getting ready, getting everything done before. I have to go. And I have had, like, little pockets of excitement, but nothing mirror the where I should And while where I can Yeah, So, yeah, it's a great point, especially with these big logistical things, like vacations we're thinking about, you know, getting the tickets, packing the bag, purchasing the gift, wrapping the get all these things when actually miss out. And like, we're going to frickin London, right? So I think that we actually and this sounds crazy thing. We kind of have to schedule that in a little bit, right? Even on your to do list. As you get ready for your trip, I want to put in, like, freak out about seeing Big Ben, right? Like, look at pictures of London on instagram and get really excited, right? Email friends for London restaurants and ask them their favorite thing. They ordered, like, put that in there building there because it does tend to go by the wayside. We tend toe sort of bogged down in the in the minutia. I don't know anything about 1 to 3 things we're looking forward to. I love the big ones, Like trips. I want one. Some small ones. Give me a small one. A little baby. One. Yeah, I have a friend driving them from Portland tonight. Oh, yeah, me? No, but didn't have dinner. All right. I love it. Right. Dinner with friends gets even smaller. Something really, really small one, because we can have these moments celebration on a daily basis. They're really small. Yes. Is gonna be warm tomorrow. Okay. The weather. I let the weather out be a huge source of excitement. for me, the weather is going to be warm, hopefully all weekend here in San Francisco, a small as I just bought myself some new gum. And I'm really excited to try. Think you come right, like so Like, even those little moments like I don't want us to only think that I also want us to think small. They're they're very, very cheap in that way. Or if they're easy to get my present, as we talked about every time you think about a present. Usually triggered opening, of course, are happy calendar. This is built for you to start thinking about events to anticipate them, right to get excited about them. Want a quick boost? I had to include this study, even just planning a vacation, even planning a vacation that you can't afford yet actually triggers dopamine. So in this study, sorry for all the text. The highest spike in happiness happens during the planning stage. This is crazy, right? That actually get more dopamine planning a vacation than actually being on a vacation. The effective vacation anticipation boosted happiness for eight weeks, just planning it. After the vacation, happiness quickly dropped back to baseline levels, so what I want us to think about here is when you're have when you have vacation time. Don't actually wait at the last minute to planet, even just doing Internet research. Looking at pictures online, sending e mails to friends, asking Have you ever been here all that planning? And if you're sending out one email every few days, it's actually the most inefficient way. But happy making way to plan a vacation because you're able to sort of pull out the dopamine every time you start planning it. Caution. Have a cautionary note here. One thing I don't want you to do is anticipate for too long. And what I mean by this is when I was little, I really, really wanted a pair of roller skates. They were adorable. They were white with pink wheels and they had glitter shoe laces. So I asked them for my birthday. I got them for my birthday and they were, like, perfectly white, so calm about. I can't go out on the streets like I'm really gonna roller skating because I don't want to scuff them up so I'd wear them, like around my room. You know what I would like shuffle in them collide carpet. And I did this for, like, a few months, and then I grew out of them and I couldn't ever wear them. It's like assessed like the saddest story because I anticipated for too long, like I was waiting for the perfect day, the perfect moment when I was ah, perfect roller skater in my imagination, I was gonna, like, saunter out of my house and like, roller skate down the street, you know, and everyone would be like, Hello, look at my new skates. But I waited for that perfect moment for too long. So anticipation is not about over planning the perfect thing. It's about trying to enjoy every moment and then taking it, whether it's perfect or not. Set number two savoring. So when you're actually in the moment, how can you save ERM or and savoring is when you have that moment, it's kind of a body moment. This is less mental. On more body when you're like or mm or whoa, right, those with at those moments in your body, we typically skip right over those, especially me. I am not feeling oriented, right, so I am usually about like Oh, this is great worth. I don't take that moment to be like, Oh, this is amazing. I very rarely take those moments, and there's a difference between this is great and like, this is amazing in your body. So go with me on this for a second. This is actually called the undoing effect. That feeling in your body of like, almost unraveling or reveling in the excitement is something they call the undoing effect. So in this study, participants were asked to give a difficult speech to a panel. It's a very typical thing, by the way, in a lot of studies, and their blood pressure and heart rate were measured before, During and after this experiment, they were shown videos with different emotional responses. So one group was shown a neutral video of like a commercial for laundry detergent. One group was shown a kind of angry video of like a rally. One group was shown a video of like a person dancing through the field with beautiful views. What they found was the positive emotion. Videos helped lower blood pressure and heart rate. They made her spins feel more relaxed. Now this is obvious, right? OK, Yeah, good videos cause you to feel calmer, but it's also not obvious because we don't often think of those small moments of joy as physiologically changing the feeling in our body. And so next time you have those small moments of little pleasure, right? They were just looking at videos of sunsets. Wasn't like they were in a sunset. It was looking at a video of a sunset, even just that lower their heart weight and lowered their blood pressures. Next time you have a little moment you put a great stick of gum in your mouth, right. You see a pretty set of flowers. I want you to think about how can I savor this moment just a second longer? I call it adding five seconds. So the right feelings can also help us be more effective. So not only do they feel more relaxed when they went out to the panel of judges, they also perform better. This is not just about the pleasure it gives us. It's also about right before we go into the next task. Doing the task better have lower heart rate. You're going much more relaxed, able to focus on the task at hand. So I've decided to add in rituals to my life, and I want to encourage you to add these wow rituals into your life. So, for example, I used to go in every morning to my kitchen. I started every morning with a big glass city like shuffle into my kitchen that, like, grab my glass, my ma whatever was in there, open up my tea bag, put it in their steep, it walk upstairs, do this every day. And I realized there was a possible moment of whom Here, right? So instead, I decided to get, like, really cool like gravity mugs. I got one of those beautiful, steep er's. I decided to grow mint in my garden. This is a happiness experiment, and every morning I go outside, I pick a few fresh leaves of mint. It's gorgeous fresh mints. There's nothing better. I take it in my kitchen. Had this little grinder this really pretty grinder they bought, sits on my account and I like grind, my minutes smells amazing and I boil myself freshman tea. I look forward to that so much when I get up in the morning, and by the way, if I ever don't have time. Always grab a bag, right? That's always there. So I would say I do this like four times a week, and it's this moment that I savour. I look forward to it. I'm in the moment and it helps me enjoy the smell of the tea that tastes the T so much better. This is a really small thing that I want you to start thinking about how you can build rituals. The other thing I know it's that I did is I typically eight and worked so lunch. I would typically take my lunch up to my desk, work at my desk, and I realized that that was actually lost moment. I would often have really yummy lunches. So I realized that instead of working through lunch, I would take my lunch and I got to pick one Ted talk. So every lunch I watched a team, a Ted talk, and I don't do any work during that time. Helps me enjoy my food, and I get to watch a Ted talk, whether it's funny or serious. I want to also savor this journey. So we're here in this room. We're talking about happiness we're doing. I think the most important work that we can do, which is actually looking at our life and saying, How can I maximize the good in my life at home? You're taking very little bit of time every day to watch these videos. Savor them right when you laugh during a video posit, take some notes posit. Do your extras in the workbook savor every activity because these are the activities that we don't often get to do. We don't get to think about these questions a lot. Other savor worthy activities, lots of ideas. And I have tons of ideas for you in here. So getting a joke of the day email, taking afternoon tea, doing walking meditations, watching random movies, making playlists are so many different ways we can start thinking about adding these really small rituals into our life. And, of course, this is about the means, not the end. Instead of finishing things like growing a man plant and be like Oh, my mint plants doubt done. I enjoy that every day. There is no finish that project, so I also want you to think about Yes, I want to get to the end of the course, of course. But I also think the enjoyment is doing the course every day. So what could use an extra five seconds now one in the audience I want you just think about this home. I want you to fill out at least three rituals that you could dio. I'm gonna ask you in the audience what could use an extra five seconds? You were gonna build an extra on Wow seconds. Where would you add it? And while you guys are thinking about that, I want toe play A really quick videos. This is actually a video of me and my garden making my tea creativelive cups my house and took a video. Be doing it so we can can kind of see what it's like in person. It's really There's my little mint guy. Have I call it my herb Castle? My pittman Looks like a little castle of herbs. Pick my mints every morning. Take it inside. There it is Pretty, My little mortar. I love that little thing. That little marble bull I got it on Amazon. Grind it all up. I was ableto feed and we'll actually feed. Give steeping hot tea that was so hot, we could barely drink it, so I kind of grind it up. That's also what I usually do. Gratitude exercises. Actually, when I'm grinding those mint leaves smells amazing, grinding it up, poured in it sort of Steve's this, like, amazing the on green color. And it is, like, the greatest thing ever. Taste. I bought these really cool spoons yet a spoon. Right? And that's moon gives me so much joy. That little spoon, right? So I also a sucker for fresh flowers. Those are a little savor moments for me. Um, so that's one of my rituals. I'm big into hiking. I live right on the forest, and so I always do walking meditations. I like forest bathing right, These airways that I add, like, five seconds to my day. I also like doing meditations in the forest. I have a bunch of APS in our virtual tool box to box if you want to do that as well. And so a bunch of other activities for you. So what are yours? I've shown you mine. Oh, yeah. I love watering my garden. So what are yours? Right? What are some things that you could add five seconds to here in the audience. Yes, I started journaling for five seconds. That's a five second rule and pick out the best moment of the day. Yeah, favor those moments in five seconds I love. And in five seconds WhatsApp, maybe like one sentence. Little bullets? Yes, just enough. That is just enough. And you get dopamine just thinking about those five seconds, right? Knowing when you have something fun happened in the day. You know that you can add it as a bullet in your journal. It actually even extend that toe longer. Seconds. Love that. Yes, I plant roses in my garden. And last week I woke up and I could see the roses just blooming, and it made me so happy. That's just that that Ellen Langer said that we talked about about taking care of a plant. So having planting it with your own hands, watching it grow, seeing it growing, that enjoying in your home are enjoying it on the bush. Love it, have It's another small ones. Yeah, um, I go on ocean hike each day. There are a couple of things I'm thinking one. I've actually started listening. Teoh music that I like, but I think I need to have some time where I'm not listening to anything. I'm just in the nature in the ocean, Yeah, area, Um, and then to I find that if I see something beautiful, I'll take a picture. And then I will like saver and wow in the actual experience. Last night I was watching the sunset and I was taking pictures and I took my phone down. I was like, This is a way prettier than the picture I'm taking, like, let's let's just watch the big sun go down And that beating picture. So actually taking pictures an interesting one because I have wrestled with this myself. It's like if you're taking pictures in the moment, are you actually enjoying the moment? I think that the jury's out. It's actually a very personal decision. I have a couple of ideas and step for of how you can take pictures and actually have that be a capitalization experience. But I agree with you in those moments. How about a small one? Any ideas? Yeah, I recently started adding Himalayan pink sea salt to my watermelon slices. What? Oh, it's amazing. Everybody needs to try this. And I watermelon was already one of my favorite fruit. It's just taking it to the next level for me. Oh, man, that is so good. And also Himalayan, Pink sea, Salt Lake like just like I got it as a gift. Um, from my sister from one of our favorite markets in Vancouver. So as soon as she got me that it's my little ritual to add that. And then when we have guests come over watermelon, they're definitely getting Oh, I gotta come over and have some watermelon with Himalayan sea salt and even, just like knowing that was a gift that was given to you, right? So that in itself is a beautiful experience. That's a really good little one that's like intense pleasure. So want to think about how you can add these little rituals into your life? The third thing, the third step on the stage of wow, is to clarify. So what I mean by this and this is actually comes from my dad. He always used to say things end, but memories last forever. I think that sometimes, especially as adults, we have these great experiences bigger, small, and we don't sort of categorize them as a memory that makes sense. Like when you're little, you have all these kind of big moments. The moment you walked, you took your first drink of water the moment you tried this for the first time that you went to your first party, the moment your first dance with all these first and then when you hit about 20 the first kind of there's no more first left, right. That's why I like bucket list So much trying things news. You go weeks, months, years without really having, Ah, first, for big moments I want to start turning our moments into memories that even that flip of this is happening to me and I'm taking a mental snapshot of this can help you add that extra five seconds. So I had that clarifying. Oh, yeah, I have some science for you. Here is about sharing things in different modes. So there's this concept called multi modality. And what this says is that experiencing something and as many modes as possible from seeing it to hearing it, too, touching it to smelling it actually makes that memory last longer. So I want us to think about with your experiences. How can you add modalities? How can you savor the smell or take a picture or share it with someone? How can you add that layer? Because that expands the positive little nugget into something that's longer and stronger. So one that one way that I do this, if this works for you, is I. Typically, when I'm enjoying something, it could be a small something I'm eating or when I'm at a place. I try to think of one word that defines the experience. I found that if I add the one word, it adds a modality to it's sort of an explanation, and it turns that experience into a memory very similar to adding five seconds The end of the day you're putting something into bullets or writing. I will do this all the time. So when I'm thinking about a vacation or a day or an experience will be like, Well, this was so adventurous right where this was so challenging, right? I'll think about that word and helps me turn it into something. It stays permanently with me. Oh, by the way, Hashtags, oddly enough, are actually great way to do this ever been about to post something on Instagram or Twitter? And you're like, Oh, what should the hash tag beef? It was the perfect phrase for this that actually that moment is a great moment for multi modality. What you're doing is you're taking a picture or a feeling on experience, and you're trying to translate it for people who aren't there. Even that process is a wonderful way to extend it out. So don't hate that process. Love that process, right? How can I put this image or this feeling into a word or two? A phrase or two, a hash tag that people would help people get it. So I have a ton of fun words in your notebook in the multi modality section and what I would like you to dio. You don't have to do this right now, but afterwards, for your homework is the way to go down this list. I want you to think of as many experiences as possible that define each word, right? So if I say the word inspired, what instantly what memory pops into your head for inspired. So I want you to go this list and here's the trick. You cannot repeat No repeating. That means digging really deep in the memory. Well, right, there's at least 30 2030 40 words here. Right? So I wanted to find a different one for each one, which means you might have to shuffle around a little bit. That's gonna were gonna place, um, Tetris, right, some half making Tetris with searching for those memories. I think that in present day this means taking mental slap snapshots. I actually think this is one of the positive parts of social media. So I get down on social media a couple times in this course. This is one of the times we're actually gonna say it's a good thing, because when you're having a moment, you're eating an amazing meal. These days, people are like, How can I make this an awesome instagram shot? Now it's good and bad, right? You don't want to take you away from memory. But it's also a way to say what is the perfect framing to capture the hash tag of fun, right? Or sonny? So I want you to think about even if you're not posting on social media, how would you frame this in a mental snapshot in your head The best advice I got actually, before my wedding day someone said to meet your wedding day is gonna go so fast just like when adults would say, Oh, your childhood is gonna go so fast Think everything goes so fast And she said to me Try to take mental snapshots at least once an hour like every time you move locations that when you're getting ready with your bridesmaid, take a mental snapshot that will define that moment when you're walking down the aisle like take a mental snapshot She's like cause then you have these amazing memories in your head that will only be added to with pictures. That was the best piece of advice I got. I carry that with me now. So when I'm having moments like even this, like, I have mental snapshot of you guys like right now, right, that's a mental snapshot that only I can keep my head. So I want you to think about how you can trigger add those away instead of letting those moments pass us by quickly. So what's your one word for this course? The audience. But to pick one word for this course so far. What war did you pick? Yeah. Powerful. Powerful. Yes, I like it. I think it is empowering. Thank you. Yeah. Awakening. Awaking. Yeah. Those ah ha moments. Yeah. The word that came to mind was cheeks because I'm smiling so much and I'm very aware of my cheeks and my cheeks usually hurt by the end of the day. I don't know about you guys, like begets. So because you got me laughing. Go up so high. Any other words for the course? Yes. Hopeful. Hopeful. Yeah, a lot of hope. There's so much good coming. Right. So what's your one word for this course? How about today? When you got up? This morning when you envision what it was like getting up for the day? What was the one word you thought for today? At home? When you think about what was your one word for the day today when you got up? One word for today when you got up this morning, if you had to think of one excited, excited. Really? Any other ones? Okay, good. I will stick with excited. So this is just This is a game I play with myself. Typically, if I'm like sitting and waiting for something, or if I'm trying to think of some will be like, What's the word? What's the word for this? What's my hashtag? September 4 is capitalizing. So capitalizing is actually a term that helps us exponent makers, maker happiness. Exponential capitalisation is when you share good news with someone and your happiness multiplies the positive benefits of the experience. It also strengthens the bond between the people involved. So capitalization is a term that we use in many, many different areas of psychology. But I actually like the idea of capitalization for happiness. The moment you share what makes you happy, it actually increases the happiness for you, and it's infects the happiness for other people as well. So how do you capitalize on Christopher McCandless? Happiness is only a real one. Shared after his long journey, he realized, wrote in his notebook that happiness is only real when it's shared. Other people on this is getting us ready for day seven. Share your happy. I think that there are three different ways main ways to share your happy, and I want you to pick the one that feels most comfortable for you first Communal rights. This is This is kind of the broadcast effect were set up for this instagram Facebook Pinterest. You're taking your happy and your broadcasting it out to sort of, ah group of people who follow you or support you Second way, Oneto one. So this is knowing you're gonna have a good experience and you're gonna share it by texting and emailing calling. You're gonna actually take this experience and you're gonna give it to one other person. You're gonna explain that one other person what you're experiencing last one archiving. So archiving is an interesting way of sharing because you're actually thinking about how you're gonna share this for either your future self, right? When you go back and look at pictures or your kids, your grandkids, your spouse, that's a different kind of happiness that I think still counts. And that, um, capitalization. So for me, I'm a big, big instagram fan. I love sharing things on instagram. I post all kinds of crazy things on instagram. The other thing that I try to dio if I'm always looking for little moments. So yes, there are big moments on instagram, sure, but I also like I was sitting in this living room, this person brought in this cute little dog and he was like, in this little sliver of sunlight, the whole room was shady. It was this little sliver and I was like, That's a happy moment, right? Like he is so happy right there, like in this little sliver of some with that little teddy bear. So I think that for me, I use social media to try to capitalize, and that helps me turn that experience into a positive thing as opposed to a negative thing. Actually, I'm so proud of mainstream that one of my friends for my birthday turned my instagram into marshmallows. So these are all marshmallows. She took all my instagram pictures and she actually turned into marshmallows. I had, like, eat my friends, you know, like so it was like the greatest gift because my friends know that's like, Ah, happy making place for me. It's how I try to share. So they know this is really important to me. The other way that I try to do it is texting. So I'm not I don't love my phone very much. I typically I'm like, Oh, no one call me. But I do really like happy texts. I found that's away. That could help me brighten my day. And I also get really happy text back. So my closest friends, we'll send me all kinds of things. Like, for example, Maggie and Lacey. They were in my last master people skills. Course. She saw this light picture that looked like Weise and she sent me the picture. She's like, all of this light fixture reminded me of you. So I have relationships set up with people in my life where I want them to send me little moments of happiness. They sent me funny videos, sent me funny gifts. My husband sends me public pictures almost every morning puppy and kitten pictures. So that is my way of capitalizing the last oil. So I was gonna ask you to kind of pick. I would love to know what is yours. So it can be either one that you use now or one. Do you think you're going to use any ideas about which is your favorite one? Yeah. So I was actually doing this thing for a while where I was taking photos of like food and then, like doodling a face on it. But I would, like, shared on instagram on, And it may be really happy, but actually stopped for, like, a week or something, cause I got busy. Whatever. Yeah, And then this is actually inspired me to be like, Oh, I should get back on that because it was, like, a short, like, simple thing to dio. Yeah, and, uh, and easy to be consistent with. Even you just saying that like, baby laugh, Right? Like the idea of like, drying by some food is amazing. Perfect is the perfect example, but I bet you everyone who sees it loves it. It's also a interesting take on just the typical food pictures, right? It's like your own custom ization of it. I like it. The ones. Yeah. So our family uses texting. We have a family text, my husband, my two daughters and work. You kind of spread out a bit. We have one in college and a lot of travel here and there. So our texts are often things, you know, pictures of things that we know someone else will love. Yes. So it consists of a lot of trains because my husband likes training everything, anywhere you text that are just food or anything that we're doing that we know someone else in our family will really appreciate. Yep. So that is a way that you're gifting happiness, right? Like trains might not be your, like, amazing thing that the moment you see it, you know it will make him happy, right? And that is, like, the most beautiful way to literally exponential happiness. Right? So I wanted to be a little more purposeful with these things either Setting up a group text with you think people enjoy because in a little group, text together and be like guys is our new happiness. Forum tweet things to make you happy, right? Or whatever that is for you. Maybe it keeps taking. Maybe is journaling. That's okay, too. But I want you to think about how you can share it. The last thing I want to bring up here is awe. So ah is a very specific happy, making emotions a little bit different than, like joy or excitement. And from a scientific perspective, eyes one of the most powerful levers that we have so on spying your experiences There's so many benefits, they boost our immune system. They have an anti inflammatory effect. They help with depression and heart disease that moment of, like, wow, when you see a really great view and you're just oh like in awe that is incredibly powerful in the body. So I wanted to think about how you can build more awe even into your daily, like those little moments of like how this flower is so beautiful, right? I planned this in my hand, and it's so beautiful. I also want you think about little routines. What's on your desk? What's on your bedside table. The happy making is that joy producing what's on your dashboard right on your desktop or your dashboard on your computer? What's on your bathroom mirror is you have post its or quotes or pictures. What's on your kitchen table? What's on your home screen? Look at the things that you look at every day and don't look at them the same way. What are things you can do or put on those surfaces? Toe? Add just little tiny triggers of awe or happiness. And by the way, I rotate thes. We often will have the same things on our desk or a bedside table. Every few months, I will typically go on be like I need some new quotes on my bathroom mirror, Right? I'm changing up my desktop picture. So setting that into your happiness routine of changing these things, building all moments in your life. So what are some? Any ideas of areas of your life like physical areas, Bedside table desk, home screen. Yeah, I really want to plan a trip to Iceland. So my apple TV screen saver is just photos on flicker of Iceland. So they always update all the time. You see glaciers? Yeah, and just beautiful scenery. It's nice because it's like having ah, rotating, um, beautiful photograph in my living room. Yeah, and it makes me think about the trip that I want to take. So that is actually double whammy anticipation for Isil like it helps you plan the trip. So I have to go to that place. I'm going to go to that place and it reminds it of you every time we turn the TV. I love the Apple TV background. That's such a good one. I should add that on their other ideas Yes, I have a little Lego Lego star Wars my five year old son gave me. So I put it on my desk. So it reminds me Ah, you're then you should have. And so you should also have him make new things for you, right? You should keep like, stopping him out. I have to change. Do things like I have a special place on my desk for your creations. So can you make me? This is your spot on my desk. And that way he can, like, make things for that specific spot on your desk. Yeah. What? My garage is full of just like utility type things. And so I think that, like, it's a dual grass. So, yeah, I was like, Yeah, I'm always looking at stuff. So there's I think there's something I could do around there that would like for hating project poster project I would like posted on your Facebook and be like any ideas for this space, right? Like I like that I start to space you look at all the time. Okay? I love it. So here, a couple of mine, I didn't know if you wanted any ideas, so these are actually we made coasters on etc. Of all the places. My husband I have traveled together and she like, etched them into the etc coasters, cause you look at your coasters all the time, right? So, like we have coasters of all the places that we've been, um, my sisters make candles. She she makes Harry Potter candles. I love Harry Potter and she assigned me to slither in house. She's so kind. She's like, I'm Griffin during your solar and I'm like, Thanks. So I burned my folder and candles and I think of her. I am a big fan of fresh flowers. Have them almost everywhere. We, my husband and I sign up for really weird events that are happiness. Experiments like the National Court you walk is held in Portland every August. It's thousands of Cory's depend descend upon Portland. They come in from all over the country, so we go to the Nash National Courtney Walk every year. I love myself some gum, so I buy really weird gum. I know that sounds crazy, but it actually gets me excited when I have it in My purse is a really, like small little things that I do to try to build these rituals into my life. I have more ideas and our favorite Instagram's. I also think that in your instagram feed or in your Facebook feed, you can follow friends but, like follow National Geographic, right? Follow Amazing photographers follow people where they're posting pictures and their inspiring pictures. So I have some my favorite instagrams on our virtual toolbox page. Those are all included for use. You can follow a bunch of my favorites, the last one. So once your moment of happy is over, how do you keep getting joy out of it? How do you reminisce for it? The science of reminiscing so reminiscing gives us a new perspective or self insight towards current problems. It tends to put us in a batter better mood, so it's actually an upward spiral, and it helps us Mawr enjoy the present happiness, even if it hasn't have anything Jewish. What we're doing right now, reminiscing about good experiences helps bring you more into the current happiness state. I think the best way to reminisce when I was thinking about like, How do you make reminiscing an action step? But we all know, yeah, sure that's great. How do I turn this into an action step black and white. I was thinking that we should do something called mental trying, traveling so mental. Time traveling is when you utilize moments of either worrying. We're thinking about your to do list or moments where you're just totally blank, like your total. Like, you know, too tired. You actually use those moments to reminisce on good memories. So I wanted to think about just for a second to think about what you want to reminisce about. What memory or period of your life gives you that warm and fuzzy feeling way to write down some things that come up for you at home in your workbook. What are your happiest memories? Right? And that's why I had you do this list, this multi modality list that was actually my trick to get you ready for this one. I want you to go through that list and all the memories you wrote down for those positive words. That's where I want you to mentally time travel, right? That's where I want you to go when you're mentally time traveling. And then, of course, what's the one word for that memory. Hopefully, we're done that. But you can start thinking about other half memories you would like to time travel to. That's the what with the when. So if you had to pick one time in your life to mentally time travel, that's your mental time. Travel time. When would you do it here? A couple suggestions. So waiting in line, waiting at a red light there if there's a specifically long red light waiting to board a plane before sleep. So mine is this one waiting to board a plane, So I am travel a lot. The most anxiety provoking experience of traveling for me is when the like the cattle call and everyone's like, like, is it my row yet? Look, is it my time yet? That, for me, is like it's so stressful. So I've decided that's one of my pebbles. I cannot change having to do it right. I can't change that, but I can use that as mental time travel time. So typically, when I am standing there waiting my turn, that is when I kind of go through past trips. I go through what went well. I have my own mental time travel things I go through. So any ideas about where you might assign mental time traveling here, in the audience or at home? Any ideas? I do. Well, I've been writing a lot. Yeah, all right. In the evenings and I'll Well, that brings another thing. Depends. Yes, yes, Actually, this is a ritual. So I asked Jennifer. Jennifer showed me all of her jelly pens. I don't know if you see that on camera. So you brought up these jelly pens and like, this is happy making, right? Like all these amazing jelly pens Every time you open that, you're like, Yes, I All these rituals, This is a perfect kind of small ritual. You have turned writing into something fun. Yes, I love it. Mental time travel? Yes. So for me, I like kind of hate driving when I like trying. Try to things like something that I like. Yeah. So even like traffic you specifically be like when I hit, like, stop and go traffic. It's mental time. Travelling time. Yeah, Yeah, I do that on the chair lift on the mountains. Oh, yes. That's a really good one. You have the best background scenery to do it. And I like it. Yeah, yeah. Um, I hate to get my blood taken. So would that be good before here? Yeah, OK, that's a really good one, actually, that will give you the undoing effect, right? So especially ah, producing experiences. Remember how we talked about the undoing effect? Lowers your blood pressure, lowers your heart rate. So if you know that you're going into a time that's only distressful but actually, like, makes you feel really anxious. That is one of the best things you could do to keep yourself calm so you can get to the blood draw. I have to like being one of those chairs way I'm one of those ways. We really need the undoing effect. Before we do that, I'm totally with you. So just to review all of these things can happen in the moment, right? So you're like, Oh, my gosh, I'm about to get salad bar for lunch. We have salad bar for lunch. Yeah, I'm so excited. Right. Oh, gosh. The salad bar is so good. I love all these vegetables. Oh, this is like crisp write The word for this is just for fresh, right? It's such a fresh salad bar. I gotta take a picture this for Instagram. They're gonna love it. I'm gonna put on my instagram going to love this huge salad bar and then we get into here were like, Wasn't that so good? Right, That is the process very, very quickly of what that is that can happen in the moment that can also happen while you're waiting or day dreaming. So mental time travel can also happen with this, right? What can I anticipate today? What kind of reminisce about you can activate this from the back or from the front, depending on where you are? Ah, very seriously example for us would be Olive Garden's breadsticks. So I love all garden breadsticks. So an example of how this would work is I would anticipate saver, clarify, capitalized, reminisce. I would be like, Oh, my gosh, guys, it smells so good in here. Well, the smell of those breadsticks is so amazing. Don't even talk to me right now. He's breadsticks air so good. I just want to enjoy them fully, right? Oh, their orgasmic. I've got a picture. That's my one word for them. Four Instagram has to see these I'm taking a picture and hash tagging an orgasmic. Maybe I'll draw face on them. Right. And lastly, guys, do you remember those breadsticks? Right. So that is how that works Get in. That riles ourself up the five stages of Wow. I'm, like, introducing that excitement back in so I can actually enjoy those moments even more tomorrow we are doing day number six. Our happiness. G spots have not told you what our happiness T spots are yet, but I promise you will like them challenge pick your capitalizing channel. So, off that list I gave what's kind of is it texting Oneto? One is it keeps aching. Is it instagram? What is that? 1 to 1? That channel that you want to dio? Where do you want to mention time travel? What part of your life think needs a little bit of that on that reminiscing undoing effect three. I wanted to incorporate more awe into your life. It's so good for us. It's so good for our immune system. But I want to think about how can we do it? Is that subscribing to all Were the videos on YouTube? Is that reading magazines that Aw is that following people who inspire you on a daily basis either through their pictures or for their business with their posts, Maybe people who post beautiful quotes that you like It is time for the most important thing that we learned today. Remember, there is always extra credit prompts for you in your workbook that I don't cover live. So I want to make sure that you go through those. And I would love to hear what you're happy. Ah ha's were so at home. Please tweet me or happy Ah ha's and the audience tell me what was kind of a ahora something clicked for you today. Was it for our salad bar? Yes. Um, I think the the idea of the undoing effect is really interesting. Um, because, like, for example, when we did the excited, nervous, like karaoke you thing like my brain is like, I'm really excited about this, But like the physiological responses like, there's all this adrenaline. Yeah. Is that good? Is that bad? I don't know. So sometimes I get really on the fence about, you know, whether to go into an experience with, like, a positive mindset, or like a scared mindset. Yeah. So any of those hacks are on that excitement is going to turn that anxiety and something that works for you. Yes. That's what you want. Yeah. Yeah. So for me, like previously when I was looking at my instagram, I more enjoyed to look at my post on brother liked looking at the home screen and see what others it So previously I was thinking about that a little year, todo But now I think that's why because I remind like those you're reminiscing. Okay, so this is actually a really good point. So actually, studies have found that you're happier and more self confident looking at your own pictures. So looking your own previous pictures, it was sort of attributed to nurses in the studies for to have this hint of narcissism, but I actually think that it was a happy reminiscing. That's what was happening. When you're looking for your past pictures, you're like, Wow, that was great. That was really awesome. I'm so glad I did that. I also want to do a little push here, which is clean up your feet. So my bonus challenge for you is go on your any feed that you read whatever social media that is and make sure that every person you're following you're genuinely happy for every person you're following makes you feel good. If there's any kind of jealousy or feelings of left out, I would actually say Hide them unfollowed and hide them because that's actually those little moments can take away from the Ott the undoing effect that you want. So you raise your hand to get similar with excitement and nervousness. Yeah, that's what I like really changed everything for me because I dive into Amazon going down world spiral of the nervousness, yes, and then just shifting and looking that as the excitement, even the karaoke e everything. I make me so much more open and it's a word, right? Even just saying I'm excited in your head can help and then actually going No, look, I am excited about this. It's I think it's one of the simplest lovers that we have, and I use it all the time. So my beta students are always tweeting me. They're excited about things, and I'm like, Yes, do it. Yes, that was that was my ah ha moment. Just this saying of the word those participants were still nervous. They didn't just suddenly become excited because they said, but just actually saying it could totally shift the experience and the results. I also think that what's important about that is I don't like it when people say Just don't be nervous But I don't think shutting off feelings works like I know that it feels it feels nice to be likely. I'm just gonna shut off my nervousness. It doesn't work, but we can reframe so saying I'm gonna feel nervous. That's OK, but actually I'm gonna turn it into excitement is a nice way of not shutting down emotions said, turning in some that works for you. So one more hand, yeah, so big a message for me was to really enjoy the moment. My son Oliver, five year old, five years old, he puts together Lego finger and it goes, Mommy, I made it and I go Good, good. OK, then I move on, but I really want to slow down and go. Wow, that was also how did you make it? How did you get the idea for Where do you want me to put it? Let's find the perfect spot for it. Let's name it right. All those things that is gonna not only give him exponential happiness, but you too. Oh, yeah, I love it. So at home I want to hear your happy Ah ha moments. Remember, I'm going to give away a book my book Captivate to people who tweet all 10 days Those best tweets And I will see you all tomorrow Shall we stand up and do a little dancing Outro You can imagine Don't stop believing Wish we could play it I give you look like a heart for

Class Description

Lessons

1. What is Happiness?
2. What To Expect In This Class
3. Train your brain to look for happiness patterns
4. Mastery: Utilize your greatest talents and skills
5. Playfulness Leads to Happiness
6. Control: Maximize What Makes You Happy
7. Capitalize on Positive Experiences
8. Giving & Gratitude
9. Grow Your Happiness Community
10. Cultivate Luck
11. Triangle Theory: Nutrition, Sleep, and Movement
12. Assertivism: Live to Your Fullest Capacity
13. Happiness Office Hours
14. What You Get With This Class