You know what's killing more dreams and failure fake positivity, and as
positive psychology research would tell you it's the opposite of what
the science actually recommends.
The whole good vibes only crowd have turned personal development
into a toxic wasteland of denial.
Delusion, but here's what they do not want you to know.
The real positive psychology isn't about pretending that
everything's sunshine and rainbows.
No.
It's about using science-backed methods that Harvard tracked across
160,000 people for 26 years to literally add 15 years to your life
while building unshakeable resilience.
And the research will blow your mind, your success.
DNA podcast, your success.
Is in your DNA.
What is up?
What the hell is that?
My fellow success seekers, welcome back to another episode of Your success.
DNA is a podcast for my aspiring folks out there.
Whether you are just a mom, a dad, an entrepreneur, a nine to five escapee.
We're here because each episode delivers mindset shifts, habit upgrades, now a
little dose of rebellion, helping you break free from the convention so that
you can build a life aligned with.
Your version of success.
And if you know someone who's out there dreaming of ditching all the
kaka in their head, but still makes time for a little self-help, a little
personal development, then go ahead and not forward this episode to them.
Okay, so today we're talking about Beyond the Good Vibes only.
This is gonna be your Rebels Guide to a real.
Positive psychology and why toxic positivity is sabotaging your growth
and what science says actually works.
So in today's episode, first I'm gonna expose why the Manifest
Your Dreams Crowd is actually.
Making you weaker, not stronger.
And we're gonna share the Harvard study that tracked 160,000 people for 26 years
to discover what really extends your life.
Second, we're going to hear the incredible story of 678 Catholic
nuns whose handwritten journals at the age of 22 predicted exactly.
How long they were gonna live and what this reveals about the thoughts you
are thinking right this very minute.
And then third, I'm gonna walk you through the five element perma system
that's been scientifically proven to build genuine resilience, meaning you'll
never have to fake positivity again.
Because you're gonna have the real thing.
Okay, so here's the truth bomb.
That's gonna make some of you uncomfortable.
I really like doing this.
This just dropping a little noise in it.
Dropping that big old stone into the pond, right?
The positive thinking movement has been hijacked by people
who are afraid of reality.
Yeah, they've turned legitimate psychological science into a
feel-good fantasy that's actually making people more fragile, not
more resilient, and it's time.
Someone like me called them out, called all of it out.
Okay.
So let me tell you about two different approaches that I've witnessed
recently was at a coffee shop and overheard two conversations happening.
Neighboring tables at the first table was a woman who was telling
her friend about losing her job.
Her friend immediately jumped in with, everything happens for a reason.
Just stay positive.
The universe has a plan, right?
We, we've all, we, we know those people.
Some of them have that person in our lives.
The woman's face fell.
She, you could, you could literally see her shutting down feeling like
she wasn't allowed to process the very real, real fear that she was feeling
as, as well as the disappointment.
Over at the second table.
Another woman was sharing a very similar story, but her
friend responded differently.
Well, that sucks, and it's okay to feel scared right now.
What are you thinking about doing next?
Then they went for the next 20 minutes and actually dove
into problem solving together.
You wanna guess which woman walked out looking empowered versus which
woman walked out looking defeated?
Yeah.
See, this isn't about being a good friend, although that's probably
a great example of being one.
This is about understanding the difference between toxic positivity,
which shuts down the real human experience and the authentic.
Positive psychology, which acknowledges reality while building genuine strength.
And here's what's fascinating.
Science has now proven that the second approach doesn't just feel better.
It actually extends your life.
Yeah.
Stick with me.
Okay.
Let me walk you through what real positive psychology looks like, because
this, my friends, is not theory.
It is life-changing science.
Understand what we are really dealing with here.
Back in 1998, Dr. Martin Seligman stood up as the incoming president of
the American Psychological Association and made a revolutionary declaration.
Psychology had become obsessed with mental illness and pathology.
What if instead we studied what makes life worth living?
This launched positive psychology, not the fluffy self health version so many
of us have come to know, but the rigorous scientific research version and the
results, the results are staggering.
Harvard University tracked nearly 160,000 people over the course of
26 years, and they discovered that real optimists live 11 to 15% longer.
Our pessimist friends out there, that's not just correlation.
When they controlled the lifestyle factors like, uh, exercise and uh,
diet, they found that lifestyle only accounted for 24% of that link.
Something deeper was happening there, but here's a study that.
Really should get it your attention.
This one is the NUN study and I mentioned this briefly earlier.
Researchers followed 678 Catholic nuns from the age of 22.
Until they died.
What made this unique was that all of these nuns had written brief
autobiographies when they entered the covenant as young women.
Decades later, Richards scored these handwritten documents
for emotional content.
The nuns who expressed the most positive emotions in their early writings
live an average of 10 years longer than those who expressed the least.
Think about that.
These women, they lived virtually identical lives.
They had the same diet, they had the same routine.
They set, they had the same healthcare.
The only variable at this point was really substantively how they
viewed their world as young women captured in a few paragraphs.
Of their own writing in their own words.
Now, here's how you apply all of this using the PERMA model.
P-P-E-R-M-A and PERMA stands for the five elements that you can actively
develop, positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning and accomplishment.
Okay, let's go.
Let's go through these.
Positive emotion.
This, this is not about forced happiness, ladies and gentlemen.
It does include hope, interest, joy, compassion, and gratitude.
However, research shows that these emotions literally broaden your
thinking, making you more creative.
More resilient.
This is what psychologist Barbara Fredrickson calls the broaden and
build theory, positive emotions, expand your cognitive resources and
build lasting psychological strengths.
Just that mind muscle, but here's the key.
You don't suppress your negative emotions.
No, no, no.
You acknowledge them and then you consciously cultivate positive
ones right alongside of them.
You don't pretend that the kaka is not there.
You spread the kaka around and use it.
I, I don't know, as fertilizer, right?
Okay.
You feel me?
Alright.
Next is engagement and engagement.
It's about flow, those movements when you are completely absorbed in
something challenging, but achievable.
This isn't about finding your passion.
No.
It's about bringing your full attention to whatever it is you are doing right now.
So it's not always something you're passionate about.
You're doing it so you may as well be fully engaged.
Next, relationships and relationships might be about the most crucial element.
Harvard's grant study followed people for over 80 years and
concluded that good relationships keep us happier and healthier.
Well, duh, Tracy, I could've told you that.
Well, yeah.
But are you engaged in those fully Social support doesn't just feel good.
It measurably strengthens your immune system.
Okay, so find that good relationship.
Guess what the opposite means?
Alright, that's a whole nother podcast topic.
Okay.
Next is meaning and meaning answers.
The why question.
It's connecting to something larger than yourself.
It could be family, it could be a cause, or understanding how your
work contributes to something bigger.
Viktor Frankl who survives a holocaust called this concept
tragic optimism, finding meaning even in the face of suffering.
Yeah.
I think this perfectly captures what we're really after, not
the denial of our difficulties.
But the resilience through purpose.
I call this looking back into my abyss through all the challenging things that
have happened in my life, the loss of a daughter overcoming addiction, you
know, the vicious divorce and bankruptcy.
There's things to be learned inside there, meaning.
Okay, and that leads us to the last one accomplishment.
An accomplishment is about the satisfaction of reaching your goals and
building that confidence and competence, unlike all the other elements, this
is sometimes pursued even when it doesn't lead to positive emotions.
It's about the confidence that comes from proven capabilities.
You've accomplished it.
There's a confidence that comes with that, and you've proven your
capabilities by that accomplishment.
This connects to what Stafford's Carol Dweck calls growth mindset, the
belief that abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work.
Her research on fixed versus gross mindset perfectly aligns with building genuine
resilience rather than that brittle.
Positively you.
You know what I'm talking about.
I'm always positive.
Yeah.
But I could shatter that positivity really easy.
Here's how you implement this.
Starting today.
Every morning, identify one element of perma.
You're gonna focus on Monday.
It might be a gratitude practice for a positive emotion.
Tuesday could be finding flow in a challenging project.
So you use engagement Wednesday can involve reaching out and
strengthening a relationship.
The key is that.
You're not pretending.
Problems do not exist.
You're building genuine psychological resources to handle whatever is going
to come your way, and we all know it's gonna come your way, so you may as
well start prepping yourself for it.
This is why Angela Duckworth's research on grit found that passion plus perseverance.
Consistently out predicts natural talents.
Yeah, right.
You throw that passion and that perseverance in there and
you're going to out predict natural talent every single time.
Speaking of building natural strengths, this is exactly what
we, uh, deep dive into every week.
In the Unleash Your Success DNA newsletter.
It's for my aspiring folks out there that want real mindset
shifts, not that fake positivity.
Each issue delivers habit upgrades and my usual dose of rebellion all
helping you break free from convention so that you can build a life.
Aligned with your version of success.
No fluff, no toxic positivity, just science bag strategies that actually work.
Go ahead and sign up for it over@yoursuccessd.com.
Okay, so here's why all of this really matters.
At a deeper level, we are living in a culture that has become
terrified of their negative emotions.
I know some of them will throw 'em around pretty willy-nilly.
We've all been conditioned to believe that feeling sad or feeling angry or
feeling afraid means there's something wrong with us, but there's not negative
motions, serve crucial functions.
They signal problems that need attention.
They, uh, they create motivation for necessary changes, and they
provide contrast that makes positive experiences feel more meaningful.
Without the bad stuff, the good stuff just doesn't feel as good.
Does it, the real revolution isn't eliminating your negative emotions.
It's developing what researchers call flexible optimism.
This means maintaining hope while accurately assessing the situation.
When my daughter died, I wasn't, I wasn't trying to hide my pain.
I was trying to maintain some level of hope.
While I assess the situation, what is this gonna do to the family?
What I gotta do you, you know what I'm talking about?
All those things that start rushing through your head.
It's about building genuine resilience instead of that brittle positivity
that is gonna shatter the moment that reality WAPs it up and smacks
you right in the face or in the back of the head, whatever it might be.
This connects to a much larger paradigm shift happening in
psychology and neuroscience.
They've discovered that the human brain is far more plastic than we ever imagined.
Or maybe it's elastic, right?
Your mindset isn't fixed.
It's trainable, but it requires the right approach.
It doesn't require just wishful thinking and fake ass positivity.
No, the goal isn't to eliminate negative emotions, but to develop.
Your resilience to find meaning and difficulties and to cultivate
real positive experiences overall.
So all that said, here's your whisker wisdom for this week.
Real strength isn't about never falling down.
You are gonna fumble, you are gonna bumble, you are gonna
stumble, fall, and face plant.
The real skill.
The real strength is about getting back up and getting better at getting back up.
Dusting yourself off, sometimes wiping the cauca off your face.
Look, the research is crystal clear.
Positive psychology works, but only when it's grounded in reality.
In your reality, not fantasy, the nuns who lived the longest weren't the
ones who pretended life was perfect.
There was the ones who found genuine meaning and joy in a
life of service and of sacrifice.
Your specific action for this week is to practice what I call emotional
honesty with optimistic action.
When something difficult happens and it's gonna happen, allow you to
self to go ahead and feel whatever comes up, anger, sadness, fear,
whatever it is, don't judge it.
Don't rush out to try and fix it.
Just acknowledge it.
Then ask yourself, what one small step can I take right now to move
me toward where I want to be?
Look, this isn't about positive thinking.
It's about positive action, grounded in reality, and that is
what actually changes your life.
Listen.
The world doesn't need more fake positivity out there, right?
It needs more people who can face reality with courage and still
choose to build something better.
That's what real positive psychology is about.
Not denying the darkness, but refusing to let it define you or kick your as.
Yeah, you have the science now you have the tools.
You know the difference between toxic positivity and genuine resilience.
The question isn't whether it works.
Harvard and so many other studies have already proved that it works.
The question is, what the hell are you gonna do with this knowledge?
Your mindset isn't just your attitude.
It's your longevity, it's your relationships, and it's your impact on
your world and the world around you.
Stop faking it and start building it.
Think successfully and take action.
Your success.
DNA podcast, your success is in your DNA.