Changing Beliefs Through Language

Pushkin Welcome back to our series on how to spring clean our wellbeing. So far, we've explored the happiness benefits of things like releasing grudges, redesigning our spaces, and rethinking how our screens affect our physical health. But this episode of The Happiness Lab is about spring cleaning the beliefs that lie underneath all that. So if I ask people about beliefs, what do you believe They'll start with a political belief and then a religious belief. This is author and happiness expert, Sean Aker. They'll immediately go to one of those two things, but actually we have beliefs about everything. We have beliefs about Who drives a cybertruck? Are they liberal or conservative? We have beliefs about how tall I should be or whether or not it's good to be a stay at home parent. We have undercurrents of belief that shape everything. It's true that this idea of beliefs feels almost too broad to tackle You can believe in things like free will or Santa Claus, or karma or meritocracy. The list goes on and on, from the political to the personal, to the abstract and existential So I asked Sean, what is a belief really beliefs is simply the lens through which you view the world. changes the way you act within it. So our beliefs shape how I get C in biology or how I have a new baby. Those beliefs us to Facilitate not only was coming in And then they change what comes back out too, and then they predict what happens next In his new book, The Power of Beliefs, Sean focuses on a set of core beliefs that he argues can be predictive of positive life outcomes. Things like success and long term happiness feels especially important right now, given how many people are struggling Those beliefs are things like I don't matter or I'm alone, or this work isn't meaningful or I'm missing out or there's nothing greater than me And on the opposite side is of course, I'm not alone, or this work is meaningful, or I matter, right? orr my behavior matters. these core beliefs seem to not only shape our experience of the present. they shape how I listen to a news story that comes in. or show you how I hear a geopolitical event. beliefs are then predictive of somebody's longevity or their grades at school. And so if we have those negative beliefs, we can see exactly why we're seeing these negative impacts within our society. When I look at this world right now that seems to be suffering so much. We see accelerated rates of depression and anxiety, we see a loneliness epidemic. We see massive amounts of burnout and the great resignation, all those types of things I think we see these symptoms of the negative version of these core beliefs. Given what's going on these days, from economic pressure to endlessly upsetting news cycles to political polarization, it's no wonder some people have adopted these negative versions of core beliefs How predictive are these beliefs of our long term well beinging And is there anything we can do to change these beliefs without totally changing everything about modern society in twenty twenty six Seaan and I will dive into all these questions and the science of Better beliefs when the happappiness Lab returns from this quick break This is an IiHart podcast. Guaranteed human businesses are the pulse of every community. They bring people together, create opportunities and drive growth Chase for Business helps business owners like you with personalized guidance and convenient digital tools all in one place With that guidance and your determination, you can take your business farther and help build a brighter future for your community Learn more at chase. com slash businessusiness Chase for business, make more of what's yours The Chase mobile app is available for select mobile devices. Message and data rates may apply JP Morgan Chase Bank and A member FDIC Copyright twenty twenty six. JP Morgan Chase and compompany Oa soan laua podcast. Paresta Copa Monde de laa Fifa, Armaacomobecan Caistenia de the H Depot, Vista to Patio Paraloacion consisted Verto espresso, Unasadorfinomenal, Yune Rentintao. 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Life comes at you fast, whether youre ready for it or not. In live sports like UFC home. Welcome to Paradise. Same family. That's all that mattericed to me. Your BT favorites are now on Paramount Plus. suubbscribe now being expert Seaan Aker and I have a lot in common We both examined happiness, and we both studied at Harvard But while I was training in psychology, he was focused on something bigger divine I was at the Divinity school. I was studying Christian and Buddhist ethics I was interested in how people's beliefs shape the way that they interact with the world How do our beliefs change the way We decide to give or forgive or wake up in the morning or why we care about what happens to other people, or why we think our work is meaningful. Seaan was thinking about all this from a spiritual perspective when he ran into one of the world's leading positive psychologists. A man named Dr. Tul Binhar. Tul gave Sean a chance to join his team And to rethink what he had been studying at the Divinity School, through the lens of psychological research I realized that positive psychology was asking the same questions I was doing at the Divinity schoolool, but with a different language, I got hooked because if you could observe and measure joy, then you could actually figure out what was actually working, what beliefs Help us create a better world? What actions help us? Today, Seaan's work bridges those big existential questions with the practicality of academic studies And at the root of all of Seaan's work is the idea that our beliefs, both big and small, matter They shape our mood, our productivity, and even our health ake for example, the incredible power of the placebo effect It's oftentimes the most common example that we think about how beliefs shape an outcome, like a health outcome. So Henry Beecher was an anesthesiologist at Harvard who is looking at the role of an inert intervention compared to an actual intervention. And what he found back in the fifties was basically in a series of different studies, He found that in thirty five percent of the cases B. Inertert substance like a sugar pill, for example, or a fake intervention that shouldn't have an impact upon the outcome when the participant believed that it was a real intervention, then you got similar benefits to what you were seeing with the actual medicine. And so then people started tracking this over time. And it was the first opportunity for us to be able to quantify in many ways, the role of belief about an intervention in the medical space having a long term outcome. It wasn't just in one field. it wasn't just like with chronic pain, or it wasn't just with cancer or Epilepsy. We got to is do the modern world where before a drug can be approved by the Federal Drug Administration They tested against a placebo. They want to know that is better than just believing that this new medication that you came up with is going to work. And they do that because they know the belief is so powerful. Your book also shared an example of the power of belief that comes from professional sports success. Could you explain the example of homeome field advantage and why it's so powerful for showing the effective beliefs Sure. So like most of your listeners who know about the placebo eff fact, they know probably about the home field advantage. It's pretty prevalent in our society that if you play in your home stadium or your home court, you have an increased likelihood of winning Regardless of opponent and college football, you have a sixty percent chance of winning in your home stadium. The same thing happens in soccer. There's like a thirty percent chance of losing at home There is a fifty percent chance of winning at home with a twenty percent chance of a draw. But what you see is this massive benefit to playing in your home stadium. So I got this opportunity to an NFL coaching legend. This is Pete Carroll, who was out at the time with the Seattle Seahawks. And I was like, this is amazing because I've always wanted to ask someone in a position like this about why the Homefield Advantage exists. because it's clearly some sort of psychology seeping in. But what he explained to me was that's not what Homefield Adantage. And what he told me at the time is what most coaches and players believed, which is The homefld advantage exists because in order to get to a visitor stadium, You have to travel and you're staying there overnight and you've had flights, so you're fatigued and you're staying in a place where you don't know, playaying in a different elevation that you're not used to with a different type of weather system. You don't know where the uprights are or the soccer goal compared to the rest of the stadium, so your perception is slightly off. is the reason why we have such a home field advantage and then COVID started and the homefield advantage ppeared. Statistically, it completely was gone. But what is amazing about this is none of the things that Cach P. Carroll had talked about, which were all the things we knew were the reasons for the homefield advantage, were the reasons for the homefield advantage because they were all still true You still had to travel. You're still in a different place with a different weather All of that have actually remained constant The only difference is for the first time in the history of sports We got to see Players play in their home stadium but without fans and stance somethingomething about The fans being there was changing the performance and the outcomes for the players whichich makes me believe that is one of two things that either they believe that they're not alone or they believe that people are for them, not against them. And you can see when people start to boo in the stadium, the performance actually starts to drop for the home team in most of the cases, right? So what you're seeing is either way belieelfs seem to be predictive of the future outcomes in a way that we didn't realize was happening before. And one last thing I thought was fascinating. I learned this while writing the book I started looking up superstitions, which of course are beliefs. athletes have that they think will affect the outcome And what I found was that Michael Jordan used to believe that if he wore his UNC college shorts underneath his professional Chicago Bowls shorts. So he was wearing two pairs of shorts that would increase his likelihood of winning. So for his professional career. He didn't wear one set of shorts. He wore two sets of shorts. And the other hilarious part was that The UNC shorts were just slightly longer than the Chicago Bll shorts. So he asked for baggier longer shorts, which actually became the fashion. So You know, if you Talk to Michael Jordan, I'm sure he would tell you that he wins because of his, you know, never die mentality or his insane skill sets. If his UNC shorts were missing before that game, he would just freak out. And the reason for that is that our beliefs we know have a long term short term and long term outcome. And so let's turn to this question of how beliefs can actually shape the outcomes because I think it's really powerful. One of the things you've noticed is that beliefs can shape how we allocate attention and that matters You mentioned a funny study by Richard Weisman that used a newspaper setup. Can you tell me about that study? Yes, that's a funny one. If our attention for the world is finite, our brain resources are finite, then what we attend to first becomes our reality And the allocation of those resources happens through that lens. through which we view the world Basically what he did was he had students read through a newspaper And he asked them to count the number of photographs that' in the newspaper. and if they get it correct in an allocated period of time, then they get five pounds. It was done in the UK Right before taking the test, I gave him a short battery of questions. And one of the questions was basically, do you think that you're a lucky person G things just naturally happen to you? Do you expect Good things to happen in your life. There are questions about luck, but it's also a proxy for optimism. But anyway, what he found in the study was that after people responded to that, They then go through and look for the newspaper pictures On page two of everyone's newspaper in big bold letters, it says, stop the experiment now If you stop now, we'll give you ten pounds. So double the outcome you would have if you just kept going And what he found was that the majority of the people that claimed that they were lucky, the good things just happened to them, They stopped the experiment and asked for their money and got double the pay The other ones who claim that doesn't move in their favor. They don't expect good things to just happen to them The majority of them finished the experiment and got their five pounds and they got the right number of photographs. didn't even see the possibility that it was there to get ten pounds. And then this demonstration experiment, what he was arguing was that when people believe that they were lucky or that they were in an optimistic state. their brain felt like it hadd enough resources to accomplish the task and then devoted more resources to look for possibilities because you know they're there. You believe that they're there And when you look for possibilities, you're likelyhood a pouncing on them rises. If you don't think there's possibilities, you don't devote attentional resources there and it shapes the outcome within our lives. yet another example of how The lens to which you view the world might be continually changing what happens And if we could change the beliefs we hold about the world from like Only bad things happen to me to I think it's possible, good things could happen or change is possible thenen we might get someone to apply for that job that they might not have otherwise, or they might save more money or they might be able to look for a relationship when they're feeling alone And that gets to the next thing you've argued about why beliefs change our performance? Because it also changes the goals that we strive for. What do you mean here? And I think about this oftentimes as a parent I live in Dallas now. we moved here when our children were young and a lot of people around here sports is the big thing. They've got private coaches for their kids, you know, at four years old playing soccer And a lot of these kids and parents believe that their kid is going to be the next, you know, Michael Jordan, right? He's going have to wear two pairs of shorts but he's going to be the next Michael Jordan. When you look at the statistics for it, My seven year old believes that he or she's going to play professional sports. If you round it to the nearest decimal point in the, you know, hundreds, it's so far down there if you're rounding basasically zero point zero zero percent If someone makes it onto a high school basketball team Their likelihood of making it is zer point zero zero nine to make it into the NBA But if someone can make it into college and make it to their senior year of playing Their likelihood goes up to one point one percent. So if someone believes I'm definitely going become a professional athlete and that's the end of their belief structure or stem I would assume their likelihood is very low. What we look for when we're looking and analyzing these beliefs and trying and to get people to is how do you find a way of providing qualifiers and warrants in this So I know that the likelihood is low, but I believe that if I keep practicing and I listen to my coach and I eat right and sleep right I will increase the likelihood of becoming a professional athlete That has some qualifiers to it. then make me feel like that belief might work out better. Also, they could provide warrants. Like I was a best kid. on my team last year. I'm the best kid in my school this year I think I can be the best kid in college If someone's beliefs can get them from high school basketball at points zer zero nine percent to one point one percent at the end of college believe and their actions that pull them through that changed their likelihood of becoming a professional athlete By twelfve thousandousand percent So it doesn't sound big, it's still one point one percent But it's a massive change. And that's what I'm trying to get people to realize in the book is that Beliefs don't guarantee outcomes, but they propel us towards specific goals And in the example, you point out two different things that we want to have in our beliefs to get us towards those goals a little bit better. One is this idea that you mentioned of warrs, this idea that we have some reasons for our belief. Well it's not just delusional that I think I could be an athlete. I was the a best kid on my team, right? We want to kind of have reasons behind our beliefs But I think one that's even more important psychologically might be this idea of qualifiers. These are kind of like these if then statements. It's not just I'm going to become a professional athlete. It's like, well, if I really study hard or if I follow what my coach says. And that seems to be really important because it's pointing us towards the action. It's not this naive hope we're actually getting towards an action that might help us be more likely to achieve that goal and to actually have it come true in our lives over I think that's what we're looking for is the cycle between beliefs and actions. These qualifiers are saying if I do something. So if a salesperson, for example, is like, I'm going to be the best salesperson here they don't follow it up with if I make these calls, if I'm okay getting no nine times out of ten, if I learn this product better than anyone else, right? then I'm going to have the outcome I want. I see that so often in the business space is that you get these leaders who try to pump you up because they hear that beliefs are powerful. So then they're like I believe that you can hit X billion dollars by you know year five. And I believe that we can hit these sales target. I know they're audacious, but I believe you can hit these next year. everyveryone's cheer for me There's no foothold for the brain to take the next step what that leader should be doing is providing both those warrants and qualifiers hit our sales targets last year If We make all these phone calls If we learn this new system and implement it well, if we're able to connect with one another and not stay in these silos. If we are able to do that I believe we can not only hit our sales targetets but exceed them next year. Then the brain is not having this irrational belief about the world that is pure hope without any grounding. What we're looking for is grounding that hope in previous action, but also in future behavior. elfs matter for our happiness and our success. That much is clear. But which ones matter most Which beliefs really move the needle when it comes to our long term wellbe Seaan and I will tackle those questions when the happappiness Lab returns from the break ' been thinking about my spaces lately And I've realized just how much thoughtful design can change the feel of my everyday routines. 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Find simple mills at your local grocery store Hiness expert Seaan Acker is the author of a new book, The Power of Belfs, How strengthening Seven Core Belfs Predicts Greater Success and a Better Life Today, we're walking through those seven core beliefs and why they matter for our wellbeing and performance. The first core belief Seaan focuses on is a simple one. It's that our behavior matters It's also a belief that Sean has sometimes struggled to hold ont to in his own life I went through nearly three years of depression in my life. And this actually happened back when I was at Harvard. and there's lots of reasons for it. I think it was actually lack of social connection and also I was at the Divinity school. So I was challenging a lot of my fundamental poor constructs about the world But what happened in the midst of depression, especially at the bottom of it is you stop believing that any change is possible Like I will always be depressed. I don't even remember how I got into the swamp, but there's no way I'm getting back out And then Why would it matter if I journal about a positive experience or write down things I'm grateful for, or write a two minute positive email to someone else? I don't believe my behavior matters. because there's nothing I can do. And we see this not just with depression. we see it when somebody tries to diet multiple times and know, they've tried different fat diets and they've tried different scientific diets and they didn't work Th then they just stop. There's nothing I could do. this is my geneus,s now you whatever I want. And so what happens in that moment is When we believe our behavior doesn't matter don't get any forward action and it causes a paralysis. It's actually to me One of the biggest differences between optimism and pessimism. A lot of optimism is based not just upon thinking good things will happen, but also If you see a problem The pessimist believes that it is permanent pervasive, right? This problem will continue to exist. There's nothing I can do. my behavior doesn't matter On the other side of it is optimist. Now irrational optimist They don't even see the problems so they don't change. We're talking about more rational optimism, where they see a problem, but they believe that eventually my behavior will matter if linked to the right people within a system So On the one hand, if you have this belief that my behavior doesn't matter, you get paralysis because it makes sense There's nothing you can do. And that's why I think we feel oftentimes when we watch the news. I mean every news alert we get is a reminder, hey terrible thing happen. also, you couldn't stop this I'll text you in a little bit with a news alert, right? I'll just remind you again that your behavior doesn't matter. And of course, our behavior didn't matter there. We have to be rational about where it does matter, but it starts to bleed over to other aspects of our life. And when someone believes that their behavior doesn't matter, they don't take the forward steps. So actually one of the core I think tenets of this book is that if change is going to be possible, if we're going to move from the status quo to a better place, we need to find a way of actually believing that our behavior matters. and recognizing that it doesn't in most places. So we need to actually identify those places where it has mattered in the past didentify the places where it does matter and then focus our attentional resources there. If you have the same world But a different belief, you'll get a different outcome Eespe if you recommend is one that we talk a lot about in the happappiness Lab. It's the importance of gratitude, noticing all the blessings in life. How can gratitude give us a competitive advantage? So there is so much research on this, right when someone feels positive, it seems to increase their long term outcomes, business outcomes and educational outcomes. And one of the greatest ways of being able to do that is to shift our lenses away from Here's what I'm missing out on too. Here's who I'm grateful for in the present. I think at the base of FomMO, the fear of missing out is the belief that I would be grateful if I was somewhere else. If I could just get that New York Tes bestseller, just get that spouse or just have that incredible vacation or just have billionaire portfolio, then life would be great. And what happens is it integrates our experience to the present because our brain is focused on what we're missing out on And what we're really missing out on is what we're grateful for in the present So when our brain is grateful for what we have in the present Do doesnn't mean that we're grateful for If someone's going through domestic abuse or they're grateful for a trauma they experience, right? It doesn't mean that they're grateful for a sickness that they have. They might be grateful for the benefits. like I've worked with a breast cancer support group. This woman stood up at the beginning of I'll always remember. She got up and she said, I wish I didn't have cancer Be of this cancer I have the deepest social connection that I've ever had. It was identifying that, yes, there's inherently negative things in our life inequality, discrimination, racism, trauma But in the midst of that If we don't see anything we're grateful for, there's no meaning or joy that can accelerate our brain out of that situation And when you pair those two together, the belief that our behavior matters and that there are some things I'm grateful for grratitude becomes the fuel for then taking that next step forward Andother next step forward we can take is to cultivate a sense that we matter. We need to develop a sense of self worth Why is mattering such a powerful fuel for our action So if you If you call into a national suicide hotline, that's the very first thing that they try to make you feel. is that you matter They immediately said, than you so much for calling. This was such a brave step You are not alone in the midst of this and I'm here with you, right? hadad this moment. I think everyone experiences it. this feeling of that they don't matter for some reason. And I'm going to give an example that makes me sound not great. But I think it's important because it reveals something interesting about the way that we look at the world So Eight years ago when my last book came out called Big Potential That week, my wife, Michelle Gelan rushed to the hospital. Her water had broke three months early So we were supposed to have a daughter in April book came out the first week of February And three days later, after being rushed to the hospital, they rushed her under emergency surgery. And we almost lost my daughter three times in a two day period of time She kept sparking back to life. her name is Zoe Sparks, A Core. She just turned eight and she's amazing But instead of going on this book tour, I decided to take a step back and just be there as a father for my kids which At first seemed great, but then I just started to disappear a little bit And I watched all these opportunities go by that I wanted I had this moment where I was out giving a talk at Target headquarters and I reread these two news alerts It was about two of our contemporaries. One got a New York Times bestseller number one And then another one who's now at Harvard got to write a book with Oprah. And I used to be at Harvard and I was doing work with Oprah. and I got replaced And I thought to myself, you know what I don't matter as much And I remember getting in the car going to that talk And I just stared out the window and I felt that the world was passing me by. and obnoxious and nonsensical and self indulgent as those feelings were. I felt like it was true. And you know what I was blind to The reason I stopped doing the work and the good that I had done, I couldn't see any of that. All I felt like was That's it. I don't really matter to the world So the driver took me to the wrong location and I called the target people and they said, okay, just stay right there. We'll send somebody. And this guy blue hair, that's all I remember about him because it happened so fast. walked up next to me. and said, A Shan Acor? I was like, Yes I thought he was the escort to take me to the event And he shook my hand and he said, I just want to let you know that your book saved my life That moment I felt like it was this message of not only hope but that you matter it. And when that happened Suddenly I could see the meaning in my talk I felt like my lens was less cloudy. I still felt replaced in this world. I still felt envious of other opportunities But I took a step back intentionally because of my family and it mattered to them. Once I saw that, my mood, my outcome, the way I did the talk changed dramatically But in that moment, I needed to see that I mattered. And I think that what happens so often is when we're on social media And we see that all these other people are important or better than us at different things, we start to not just feel envious, we start to feel like I don't matter. And that actually changes the actions we take next and predicts our long term future. And when people believe that they matter, they live longer They do better at work and The experience of the present improves. so they can see why they matter because they're a parent or a good friend or a good teammate or a good author, whatever it is that causes them to feel like they matter. So that's belief number three. We should cultivate our own mattering. The next belief you recommend is to shift from a taking mindset to a giving one belief that you have something to give. Why is generosity a strategy for resilience So this is the belief that I have something to give versus I have nothing Imediately people start to think about money R They're like, Oh, I don't have money to give What I really talk about is actually time and attention So what happens oftentimes is we feel like, I'm too busy. I'm swamped right now. I've got so much going on. So I don't have time to be nice to this random person on of us. I don't have time to be nice to the subordinate who I'm telling to do this job, just do the job and get this done so I can go home or I don't have time to, you know, volunteer. Like I barely have time for myself. What happens in those moments? when people feel Like they don't have time or money or resources or attention, it changes how they're acting to other people It changes the social relations that are occurring, but also the choices that we make. This is something that we know from really old social psychology studies, the so called good Samaritan study. Tell me about that one. So this is one of my favorite studies. basasically, they had people at a divinity school these seminary students who were asked to give a sermon across campus on a story from the Bible about how there was an injured person on the side of the road and two or three people walked past and didn't help this person, and then the person you wouldn't think would help this person, the Samaritan, is the one who actually helped them So they are giving a sermon on taking care of people that other people don't see And they have to do it across campus and they have a couple of different conditions. One of them is they tell them you're running late, you have to get over there as quickly as possible The other one is you have plenty of time. There's a confonfederate who's an undercover researcher who is coughing and leaning like he's injured or sick or something's wrong with him, maybe having a heart attack in a doorill on the path to give the sermon on the goodood Samaritan. It's literally the good Samaritan's story And what they found was that people when they felt like they had time stopped and helped them. but The vast majority of the people who felt like they were in a time constrained position that they were too busy Don't help the person So they believe I do not have enough. I do not have enough time because of it It changes Fundamental core values about the world These are people who dedicated their life to God who are giving a sermon on helping people that other people don't see J just a time constraint, believing I don't have enough time changed how generous and kind they were So what we're looking at is when people start to feel like I have nothing then they do nothing They're like, I don't have a million dollars to give to a charity then they might not give five dollars, right? If they feel like they don't have Time to go out to dinner with all their friends they might not send them a two minute text. But when people feel like I have something to give, you're telling your brain I do have some resources, which means my behavior matters, I matter in these situations. You start to see how these beliefs start to reinforce one another. It's time for another quick break, but stay tuned because Sean and I still have more core beliefs to unpack We'll also talk about what you can do to change the beliefs that might be holding you down The happappiness Lab will be back in a moment I've been thinking about my spaces lately And I've realized just how much thoughtful design can change the feel of my everyday routines. But I honestly never expected a toilet to be part of that conversation. until I experienced the Kohler Smart toilet collection Kohler has been elevating bathroom design since eighteen seventy three And you can really feel that legacy in the way their products are designed. L the Koler Vail smmart toilet design immediately stands out It's modern, sleek, almost like a functional work of art It just makes your entire bathroom experience feel more elevated It's a reminder that the right design can make everyday moments feel cleaner, more comfortable, and more intentional Kohler has been redefining bathroom design for more than one hundred and fifty years And their smart toilets really show how design and innovation can transform even the most routine parts of life Design changes everything And Kolar smart toilets are a really great example of that. Experience the difference of Kohler smart toilets. Find more at Kohler. com. As the weather changes, I've been thinking more and more about my wardrobe And these days, I've been trying to get more intentional about what's in my closet I want getting dressed to feel simpler So I've been leaning into pieces that feel effortless and comfortable but still look put together been obsessed with Quince's one hundred percent organic cotton poplin tiered Maxie dress It's got a fit that feels sleek. but it's still super comfortable. And I couldn't believe how great the price was Quince makes it easy to refresh your everyday wardrobe this spring, with pieces that feel as good as they look Quince uses premium materials like one hundred percent European linen, organic cotton, and ultra soft denim Plus, Quince works directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen paying for quality and craftsmanship brand markarkup. Refresh your everyday with luxury you'll actually use Head to quQince. com slash happppiness for free shipping on your order and three hundred and sixty five day returns. That's QuincE d. com slash happiness for free shipping and three hundred and sixty five day returns. Qince d. com slash happiness Small businesses are the pulse of every community They bring people together, create opportunities and drive growth With a widespread presence in communities across the country The Chase for Business supports small business owners at a local level That makes it possible for you to connect learn from each other and grow together commitment to seeing small businesses succeed The Chase for Business team has knowledge and expertise that span a wide range of financial areas They can help you make informed decisions as you navigate the complexities of running your business. 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JP Morgan Chase and Company This message is in partnership with Symbple Mills On our show, we talk a lot about how small choices can have a big impact on your well beinging And one choice that often gets overlooked The snacks you reach for during the day It might sound simple, but the right snack can help you feel energized and focused Two things that make sticking to healthy habits so much easier When your body feels good, your mind follows That's why I feel good talking about Simple Mills almond fllour crackers They are made with real nutrient rich ingredients like almond flour, sunflower seeds, and flax seeds And the bonus These crackers have a unique crunchy texture They're absolutely delicious, and I promise they'll make you look forward to snack time We all know that unhealthy snacking can derail even the best intentions Simple mills crackers do the opposite Now I hope you know, I'm not a big ad speak person But when they say simple Mills crackers taste like sunshine in every bite, It's actually a pretty good description. They're light, satisfying, and instead of weighing you down, you feel a little more energized Choosing snacks that fuel your body well is one of those small but powerful steps that make other healthy habits stick And if you're looking for something filled with its own little reward system Check out Simple Mill Pops Yes, spelled with three Ms These light airy, poppable cheese crackers are loaded with real vegetables, so you get that quick crunch without compromising your energy It's a mindful choice that feels good and tastes great The bottom line, habits don't happen in isolation They're supported by the environment you create and the choices you make along the way When you pick snacks that help you feel good, physically and mentally, you're setting yourself up for success And success should taste good. Find simple mills at your local grocery store So belief number five is something else we talk a lot about in the Happiness Lab, this importance of connection. We need to believe that we're not alone. What's some of the evidence that this belief helps us perform better So One of my favorite studies is one I'm sure you're familiar with, theseese researchers out in Virginia, the perception study where they If you look at a hill while standing alone, And you're told you're a climate, that hill looks fifteen percent steeper compomared to if the participant is standing next to someone else who they're told will climb the hill with them And there's different versions and variations on that. that you see both physical spaces, but also emotional spaces, right? It validates the role of mentors or parents, or if someone's going through depression, having a friend in those places And my father was a perception researcher at Baylor. He was a neuroscientist there. When I told him about the study, it was amazing because in many ways, he knew that this was the case, that our perception of the world is subjective, not objective someomebody can objectively be surrounded by friends who care about them and love them. But if they believe that they're alone and people really don't like them. The perception of that social support changes the impact upon it, which is Part of the problem of depression sometimes is we lose that ability to see that social connection or perceive the world like other people do But the reason I like this is if a hill looks deeper to me When I'm feeling alone, when I believe that I'm alone then my likelihood of wanting to climb that hill clients, I might not take that next challenge. I might not apply for that next job. I might not apply for that college for that scholarship, which means the world is being warped but unconsciously.