greetings everyone michelle gramberg welcome to positive energy and television for the evolving soul our topic on this show is positive psychology where traditional psychology mainly focuses on people's issues problems and weaknesses positive psychology mainly focuses on one's inner strength and rests on the promise that every human is hard wired for happiness and success i'm d poll break author of habits and happiness an expert on happiness and we're going to talk about happiness and many other topics i think it's a great topic i need to know more and others do as well so welcome thank you michelle so tell us about your background and training a little bit sure so i am a certified poster psychologist certified neuro linguistic practitioner and also former locally certified dale carnegie training business coach so all of this really i do and i've done just for fun in mind when i call free time i still have a full time job i work as an executive in a large financial firm and i do something it has nothing to with  by day and happiness by night i try to i think that's the bore you try to bring it and tried to bring it in so i know i first heard about positive psychology many years ago and became interested i actually went to school for  counseling and psychology but what is positive psychology really and what makes it different than traditional or other forms of psychology and why is it important for us to know about it good point so traditional psychology right it is really concerned about what is wrong with us is concerned about getting us you know from minus ten to somewhere to zero so that we can function right nothing wrong with that we need it there's nothing so i just want to make it clear so that certainly in the psychology and going back to freud that absolutely needed post in psychology is concerned about it's all about what the right with us rather than what's wrong with us it's about rather than what's wrong it's about taking us from that zero or minus two months three two plus two two plus three two plus five right so it's a really it's a complementing traditional psychology there is certainly  that's why some people get confused why positive psychology what does it really mean yeah yeah because people might say isn't all psychology positive it is trying to help and it's not that all psychology is negative psychology at all it's just that this is almost a more of volves form of it you know and it's not just dwelling on what's as if we're broken it's saying there's more right about us it's more wellness about us there's more homeless about us than there is not correct that there is so true and it's and it's important it's also not you know hippy or gee it's not about let's be happy all the time it's not about let's just smile right really two hundred other people just think that oh this is just about being happy all time you know it's not only you know crazy people i mean people who are mentally ill if you will i happy all the time we need to have all those emotions you know what it's all about you know our improved wellbeing for not you know you look at everything just so let's just mention the work of dr martin seligman who i studied in school and absolutely loved his book that became sort of a national phenomenon almost called learned optimism and i know i studied it i wrote about it and i know that learned optimism is sort of the essence of positive psychology in some ways so talk about that i mean the idea that optimism is modeled for us are not modeled for us but it is a skill that we can actually learn and it is more to do with the way we frame events in life so do you talk a lot about optimism i imagine sure in your work i certainly do and  sm too because the way i see it it really has to be based on something that happened in our life so to give an example i am just generally moved mystic person that's just my nature you know i think my mom i always say that she was positive psychologist before political she was introduced you know through this war before martin seligman kind of put this on the world map but but but it's important like history go back and say everything will be fine because to give an example you have to say you know we're going to college and some of us fail the exam so what the pessi the student will say i failed this because i didn't study hard and go drink too much last night but three months ago i passed exam eight because i had more sleep i woke up early morning you know i studied harder so if i do yeah it has to have a basis for it when i talk about thinking pollyanna kind of thinking exult and wishful thinking and being disassociated from reality but it really is how the dialogue we have with ourselves when anything happens and that all the glass is half full or the glass glass is half empty it's not that we're always one or the other coming from optimism or pessimism we're so we can often be shades of both because we're  hello right yeah and it would tell us that you know we're ok right so positive psychology is evidence based as well there yes science what you're teaching people has already been tried out there's methods and it's been related to the brain and our physiology so again it's not pulling out of the blue so talk a little bit about the connection between scientific methods and so and again i'm not comparing any programs it's a great program you know changes so many lives some of us look for science behind it some are for some of us and i'm engineer my background is  nearing so for some of us we research for the science see that we need that says here in the western world that's what we need for others if you look at you know for twenty five hundred years if you look at the buddhism in their tradition we are now proving what they knew for thousands of years right but we need that proof now right or wrong we just need it right so now can we can we do this with our science yes people have done it without science but in this you know technology world in this twenty four seven access to everything and everyone having a scientific or prove that certain tools work with the thousands and hundreds of thousands of people really makes us you know get let me try if i you know there is a scientific and and what i do and a lot of my colleagues is you know read you know read hundreds of pages of papers and to pull out one part of that says are you know if you just ask your kid when they come from school when he or she comes from school is there see how was your day if you just ask a question what went well in school that totally changes the entire dialogue right so these little things that we can you know scientifically proven that we can implement in our lives truly can change all or so that's why i think science is really important is it is it isn't that what you write because it makes people more more open to it right yeah it's not just opinion it's there's some science behind it in that way and now we know based on the you know if you look at the science of water plasticity now we know that al green changes not only children you know eighteen teenagers twenty one until the day we die and it's all about what we do every day so about this whole brain changes it's based on what we do what we think what we feel our brain change it's about the choices example that we make every day and what we focus on what we reinforce but thank goodness they came out with that science the science of nerve plasticity because before that i think people really believed they were more of a victim in life or they were fixed or there was the idea of our personality is set by age thirty and there's nothing you can do about it that whole you know idea was out there and now that's changed right you know and so we're going to talk more about that because your expertise is in habits and connecting habits to happiness how interrelated they they really are so let's talk about the nature of happiness and put that frame on it for so many people happiness is allusive it feels like something that's just out of their reach you would probably say different i would love to say different to people so what are some of the key is what do people need to know about you i kind of mentioned that feeling the examen how we see and it's about really helping our kids to have that growth mindset helping our kids to to be ready to they can really do anything in life that it can be anything that  know their mind set can go in and there was a lot of research that even just telling kids about a growth mindset telling kids how did brain develops based on they do just that little thing help them do better in the it's so what do you think it is about that again just awareness and just being more conscious of things just knowledge about how we actually operate it helpful i think it's all of incredible you know years ago the old thought he's crazy and now he's like the most well known you know researcher and believe you like little thomas yes i can well there is research behind it yeah yeah i'm thinks of i'm glad it's come to that point we can actually point to the research so talk about happiness ok and what do what he thinks most important people need to know about happiness in that they don't give up on happiness  happiness is really the individual thing right so it's what makes you happy may not make me happy right there three out here however there are things that improve our overall well being take a pill if you know the pill boards you know help you with your stress the crease your cholesterol you know help you with your blood sugar help you all these things right and there's the exercise now exercise doesn't mean you have to run for two hours if it's just a movement so just give an example this is what brings us overall well being and when we do something for ourselves you know still there somebody asked me said well but that's only for your own happiness but it's not because when i'm happier when i go to work right happier in the morning i can help others right i'm cautiously i don't go to work to help others but because i come with  about you because i help myself first thing in the morning by doing excise by meditating in effect then helping other people so they sort of a muscle that you build for being it's choices that we make it's a lot of knowing the unconscious habits that we're in right and it's so it's much more than a feeling because people think happiness is just a feeling that hoops maybe i'll be happy maybe i won't you know that it's just sort of random but it's not so what people usually confuse is happiness were in the moment you didn't think of past you didn't think a future you didn't think was going to be best in this play you were in the play that's the floor we need more of these moments we need to be moved in the present right meaning in life but it's really not only the big meaning it's really it's not only like you know why am i here right but it's really menial what we do this water to you and i do for me is the truly meaningful work for me is bringing this science that is not easily accessible to thousands of people because let's be honest to god to you penny cost sixty thousand in you know how many people can afford this so taking this down to the street for me the universality of what we're all seeking in this life and so say those again so p is positive emotions in is engagement or flow of is relationships m is meaning achievement so that's that's one of the well known that's martha's cell you must model that we all follow a perma that's that's really well known so maybe we can just focus on one of those areas at a time bringing more of that into our lives  certainly very doable so let's talk about sort of the the premise of your book where you talk about habits and for you habits are really the secret to happiness as well those little habits that we're not aware of and changing those habits so talk a little bit about habits what they are what they really are and can they be changed yes how do you go about doing that so much more happy good so if you think of habits what  physical habits emotional habits and thinking addicts and there's a fourth group which are introduced and then i call it the circle habits and i think a lot of my colleagues after reading my book and work eighteen hours a day and you need to sleep and you need to eat will be that so you say what when i you know when my day goes to whatever fifteen or whatever it is then i'll start exercising so again it's really important so that's really is it's really weird but we can never delete that low pathway it's always there so we can only replace it meaning that i don't know we have i know we have don't have a lot of time but meaning that you know i replaced drinking soda with drinking water so so i had all the same trigger you know and we can spend more time with that but there is something triggers it and you do what you do right and then you have this routine which is what you do and then  end and the wooer that you get maybe good for you may not because your brain can't really focus on the long term reward meaning that if we go to din on the short term goal or the key is to find a short term reward i'm in immediate reward because that's what our exhorts seeking exactly exactly think that we're getting reward from the poor habit we get some little rush out of that i guess whether the it but then ultimately doesn't serve us in the long run correct so you may you know trick your brain to say ok yes you do really do want this big juicy burger but remember the last three three and you had it and you went back to the meeting and exhausted so don't add it because you can't just say well you know two years from now you can doesn't work like that so it's like really focus on short short term goal ok all right so so the tool out of that people can try right now is to just maybe write that down write down some of the habits they'd like to change and then just be very realistic and very short term about it and think about not fighting against the habit itself but just overlapping on that habit with something more more productive more healthy right well you know do you i did i mean there are like so many tools so rightly so so so the question is i mean ideally right everybody would really want to our habits so when i wake up what do i do and just go down the list and then highlight then you say what habits i want to keep right so do you know what habits i don't want to keep and if you don't want to so you cover a lot of that and in your book i imagine you're going to same thing also about your book yes so it's it's what it is is the book is really organized on it's based on scientific research right but more importantly it is based on my life meaning that i studied four year science supposed to psychology and in order research and then what i did is i picked up two by tool in a tried in my life if it worked new once and then picks you know try some of the tools and see what works i mean one of the things i know come up so often in my workshop is you know people want to exercise or people want to eat healthy food or people you know so so we could start we have a we could walk through some of those a couple there is just so much to cover well there's a lot there is a lot to walk through in all of that but but but really at least it's encouraging to hear that we have so much potential that's really the message that we want to drive home that we don't want people to feel helpless and hopeless in their lives that happiness is a muscle that you bill that has a lot to do with just being aware and setting goals and intentions to change things little by little but you must tell people a lot don't judge yourself around any of that don't pressure salt on judges of don't beat yourself up because then you're going to do really defeat the purpose that that's the key you can't beat yourself up by you but you have to start very small you see some of us can just do quarter can stop something you know others it takes time so you want to start exercising don't keeps you going that's what you need you need to figure out how to get your own happiness chemical recode without going to drug store right and we can and that's really the and that's where it really starts to roll just those little achievements and looking at your day and saying what did i do well today i love to say ask kids that at the end of the day what went well today what was the best part of it you know in that way and take it again take out of it there's no to merits for how we who we are and what we're doing each day there's only credit you know we get only the positive on that side of it in that way so if you have sort of a final message that you'd love to leave people with if you could sure so the key is that all of us truly can find happiness and the other key is that a lot of people don't talk about don't just keep searching for happiness crazy that's really not the point the point is to find the things that make you happ doing things for other makes me happy yes help other people you know being kind to other people you do some unexpected kindness those are the things that we know based on the research makes people happy so just do something good for others rather than just think you of yourself and that in turn will not only make other people happy but also make you happy as a uniform message pay it forward becoming to one another thank you so much this has been a really wonderful conversation and i know that there's so wrapping up another enlightening show i hope we've inspired you with ways to live a happy and gage and meaningful life if you like the show please tell a friend and thank you for watching join me next time on positive energy