Positive Thinking Seminar
Last night a few of us attended a “Positive Thinking Seminar” at Manarat Saadiyat in Abu Dhabi. It was free and had a great buffet lunch afterwards (I am a sucker for free food!)
We got to hear three distinct speakers, starting with a young Canadian guy (I had to put in a plug) by the name of Neil Pasricha. He talked for almost an hour about his life. His wife left him and his best friend committed suicide. He was pretty down at the time and decided to write a blog titled “1000awesomethings.com” to help feel better about himself. At first only his father read his blog but before long 100’s, then 1000’s then millions of people were reading it. He won an award for the best blog in the world and then turned his blog into a New York bestselling book.
The second guy was Chad Crittenden who was diagnosed in his early 30’s with cancer on the bottom of his foot and had to have it amputated. It was a deadly type of skin cancer with an almost 0% survival rate. He ended up appearing on the “Survival” TV show and has run in marathons and now works with helping other amputees fit back into society. His positive outlook was what got him through his ordeal. It has been 10 years since his cancer. He is set to climb Mt Kilimanjaro.
The last guy, Shawn Achor, was my favorite. He has written a book entitled “The Happiness Advantage,” which I have downloaded to my Kindle. He attend and graduated from Harvard University and then became a professor there teaching “Positive Psychology.” I was told that when he offered the course, their expectations were maybe a 12 - 15 people might sign up. Over 1000 people showed up for the class and it was the most successful class at Harvard. He explained his research found that our personal happiness comes from only 10% from external sources and that the other 90% comes from our internal thoughts and feelings. We are responsible for our own happiness and we can be as happy or miserable as we want.
His research also found that happy people:
1. Have 37% more sales
2. Are 3 times more creative
3. 31% more productive
4. 40% more likely to get promoted
5. Have 23% less fatigue symptoms
6. Are up to 10% more engaged in what we do, and
7. 39% of happy positive people live to the age of 94.
He then went on to tell us five things we can do to become more positive and happier in our life. If we spend the next 21 days doing one or all of these things listed we will train ourselves to be more positive and happy in our daily life.
1. Every day think of three things to be grateful for and say them out loud or write them down.
2. Journaling. This means that every day we take a few minutes to write down our thoughts and feelings…kind of like a diary for our brain. They have found that our brain is unable to distinguish between the act of actually doing something or just thinking about do that something. What that means is you don’t actually have to do something to get the benefit of it…just think about doing it and our brain and body gets the benefit.
3. Exercise…this releases endorphins and makes you feel more positive and happy.
4. Mediation – this is an excellent exercise to slow our brains and stop it from multitasking. A couple of minutes every day.
5. Every day carry out a conscious Act of Kindness. They have found that by sending out one positive email a day to someone in our social network who has been helpful, someone we admire or respect, and let them know our positive feeling toward them, this helps to make us more positive and happy.
So, that was the seminar from my perspective. For those who missed it, I hope this review is helpful. Carly and I practice most of the 5 things and we are extremely happy. Works for us!
Pete
We got to hear three distinct speakers, starting with a young Canadian guy (I had to put in a plug) by the name of Neil Pasricha. He talked for almost an hour about his life. His wife left him and his best friend committed suicide. He was pretty down at the time and decided to write a blog titled “1000awesomethings.com” to help feel better about himself. At first only his father read his blog but before long 100’s, then 1000’s then millions of people were reading it. He won an award for the best blog in the world and then turned his blog into a New York bestselling book.
The second guy was Chad Crittenden who was diagnosed in his early 30’s with cancer on the bottom of his foot and had to have it amputated. It was a deadly type of skin cancer with an almost 0% survival rate. He ended up appearing on the “Survival” TV show and has run in marathons and now works with helping other amputees fit back into society. His positive outlook was what got him through his ordeal. It has been 10 years since his cancer. He is set to climb Mt Kilimanjaro.
The last guy, Shawn Achor, was my favorite. He has written a book entitled “The Happiness Advantage,” which I have downloaded to my Kindle. He attend and graduated from Harvard University and then became a professor there teaching “Positive Psychology.” I was told that when he offered the course, their expectations were maybe a 12 - 15 people might sign up. Over 1000 people showed up for the class and it was the most successful class at Harvard. He explained his research found that our personal happiness comes from only 10% from external sources and that the other 90% comes from our internal thoughts and feelings. We are responsible for our own happiness and we can be as happy or miserable as we want.
His research also found that happy people:
1. Have 37% more sales
2. Are 3 times more creative
3. 31% more productive
4. 40% more likely to get promoted
5. Have 23% less fatigue symptoms
6. Are up to 10% more engaged in what we do, and
7. 39% of happy positive people live to the age of 94.
He then went on to tell us five things we can do to become more positive and happier in our life. If we spend the next 21 days doing one or all of these things listed we will train ourselves to be more positive and happy in our daily life.
1. Every day think of three things to be grateful for and say them out loud or write them down.
2. Journaling. This means that every day we take a few minutes to write down our thoughts and feelings…kind of like a diary for our brain. They have found that our brain is unable to distinguish between the act of actually doing something or just thinking about do that something. What that means is you don’t actually have to do something to get the benefit of it…just think about doing it and our brain and body gets the benefit.
3. Exercise…this releases endorphins and makes you feel more positive and happy.
4. Mediation – this is an excellent exercise to slow our brains and stop it from multitasking. A couple of minutes every day.
5. Every day carry out a conscious Act of Kindness. They have found that by sending out one positive email a day to someone in our social network who has been helpful, someone we admire or respect, and let them know our positive feeling toward them, this helps to make us more positive and happy.
So, that was the seminar from my perspective. For those who missed it, I hope this review is helpful. Carly and I practice most of the 5 things and we are extremely happy. Works for us!
Pete
