How Being More Positive Improves Your Life

Hello again, everybody. Oh, there we go. Ah, I'm trying to go live. It's Kathy Caprino here. Welcome to my Brave Up Tuesday Facebook Live. It's seeming to have a little bit of a struggle connecting with you all. So I'm going to talk a little bit and see if it works. I do want to tell you that. There we go. For some reason I have to start it and then stop it and start it again. But I see you all. Thank you. And if you're getting this, just send me a thumbs up so I know live people are there. We are talking today about how being more positive improves your life. And it's such an important, such an important topic. And I don't have a long time to talk today, but I'm hoping that you all will find this very helpful. I do want to tell everyone that for the summer, I'm going to just one time a month doing these and it's the first Tuesday of every month, I believe. So thank you for that. Thank you for joining me. So let's talk about positivity. Why am I talking about it? Well, first of all, I think we hear about it constantly, right? We see a lot of posts, we see a lot of books about it. But what I see in working with so many people and even among my family and friends, they may consciously understand that being more positive is important, but they're not engaged in activities that help them become more positive. And I want to tell you that this is just not. This is not just a nice, nice idea. Being able to be more positive in how you think and how you project and what you assume and what you worry about. Being able to be more positive. Take concrete steps to change how you are looking at the world, to change the words that you use to change how you interact with people. This changes what happens to you. It changes your life. And, you know, it frustrates me because I see so many people who refuse to take these steps and somehow almost feel vindicated in their negativity. And, you know, obviously I learned in therapy every behavior makes sense when you understand the context. But sadly, this context is that they are perpetuating their own negativity, their own unhappiness and their own misery. They don't want to see that. They want to make it. And I think we've talked about this before. I call it below the line thinking and above the line thinking. Below the line thinking is, ugh. Everything is everyone else's fault. It's my husband's fault, it's the economy's Fault, It's Trump's fault. It's this fault. It's that fault. But when you do that, you are handing over all your power. When you're blaming everybody else, you actually become a victim. And that's really not what you want. You don't want to just say, I have no control, I have no influence. You know, I have client after client who, when they talk about how they're thinking about their next step, they've given up all their power about it. It's like they're waiting for things outside of them to happen. That's what's what happens when you're below the line and when you're negative, when you are a positive thinker, you're above the line. You say, look, I see the challenges. Woo. There's a lot of them. But I have what it takes to navigate through these challenges. I have what it takes. I'm enough, I'm competent, I can do this. There's also what pops to mind. You know, there's a number of. Sadly, when you're a trained therapist, you see a lot of things that maybe you wish you didn't. And I see a lot of personality disorders around me and in the people I work with and interact with. And a lot of people in higher places, there's narcissistic personality disorder, there's dependent personality disorder, there's borderline personality disorder. But one thing I do see is dependency. People being overly dependent, they're almost acting like children about how they think and how they make decisions. And they want other people, including their coach and to answer everything for them. Fix this. Fix this. Tell me what to do. Ah, let's breathe. That's not the way we want to go. You don't need anyone else to fix it. You can fix it. So let's talk about. And if any of this resonates, I hope you'll. Yes. Thank you, folks. Send me that thumbs up. Send me that heart. So I know that I'm talking to human beings. So I. I'm referring here to some notes I wrote a post a long time ago about 10 ways that being more positive improves your career. I'm going to republish that because I think it's pretty powerful. And I want you to become more positive because when you do, you will see more positivity, more opportunity, more engagement, more success, more reward. You'll see it all coming towards you, but first you have to do it. You have to meet the universe halfway. Okay? And if you have any questions about anything, I'm saying please Type in your questions. So why is negativity so destructive? Because it limits, it constrains and it tears down. And it also tends to escalate the bad stuff in your life and it strips away your ability to see opportunities that could change your life. It's damaging, folks, Damaging. So I'm asking you from the bottom of my heart to think about how you approach life. Are you positive or are you negative? And you know, there's a lot of research about pessimism and optimism. And one study I saw that you can actually detect signs of pessimism and optimism in children as young as four and five. But nothing is set in stone. The wonderful work of Shawn Achor, positive psychologist, talks about. These things are not set in stone. They're not immutable. You can change this if you've always been a negative person. Today after watching this, you can change that. So let me talk about why. Why we need positivity. So here's the 10 things that being more positive does. And I think it's a hundred things, but I'm dissecting it down to 10. First of all, it helps you engage with others more effectively and get more support for your ideas, for your emotions. So let me just take a step back. Send me a thumbs up if this resonates. Don't you know in about three minutes when you're with someone who's negative? Can't you just feel it? Isn't it a drag? Isn't it a drain? Think about your family members, think about your friends, think about the people that work for you. Think about your bosses. Don't you know exactly what it feels like when you're with someone who's doom and gloom or what do you want to do? Type it in. When you're with someone like that, what do you want to do? You want to run or you want to change them? Because it's pretty excruciating to be with someone who's like Eeyore, you know, sweet Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh. You know, I love Eeyore, he had a sweet energy. But yeah, you want to leave. Da says you can't stand it. Well, that is the energy that you're putting out into the world. And I don't want to get too woo woo for you, but everything is energy, everything. So even if you're trying to be positive and you're using some woo hoo, some happy words and you're trying to smile, your eyes show everything you know, look at this smile. If I'm not happy and I Smile. What do I look like? I look so fake. If I really smile from my eyes because I'm happy, look at the different energy. I remember when I did a photo shoot years ago, they were like, smile with your eyes. And I realized, oh, wow, when you don't do that, you look so fake. You look like a. What's the word? A mannequin. So you know what negative feels. And you. You should know what negative feels like in yourself. Do you. Are you able to, when you wake up in the morning, sense your mood? If not, I'm asking you to get in closer touch with your body and closer touch with it. What's it feel like? Where does it feel bad? Where does it feel tense? Sometimes when I'm very stressed. Right now, I'm very stressed. I got a lot going on. Selling a house, moving. I realize I'm breathing very shallowly, so I try to stop and take three deep down to my toes breaths. And that can shift everything. It shifts your nervous system. But back to being negative. Do you know when you're being negative? If you don't know, then that's a challenge. You're kind of not in tune with yourself, but then you can look at clues around you. Are people wanting to be with you? Do people call you to go out and have lunch? Do you have friends? Right. If not, it might be a negativity issue. Just might. So I'm going to talk about how positivity shifts your life. Then I'm going to give you some tips. All right? Secondly, look, now, this is part of the first point. When you're working with someone, for instance, and they're totally negative, do you want to support their ideas? No. Because you don't actually like them. You don't actually like being with them. Let's be honest. You support people that you respect. You support people that you admire. You support people who inspire you. You don't support people who make you feel lousy. So this is one of the 10 ways being more positive will help you. Number two, when you are more positive, and I mean in your demeanor, in your language, in your body language, in your outlook, in your words, in your thoughts, you also develop as a role model and someone to watch. You know, a lot of people will say to me, for instance, this is not trying to be braggery, but I just want to share. I remember when I first started speaking publicly, people would say, you're so authentic. And I remember thinking, wow, we must really not have authenticity in our life if that's what people are resonating With. I mean, so many people are fake, right? Do we know what I'm talking about? Fake and presenting, you know, the Facebook image of our life when they're not really living it at all. But what other people say now is, you're kind, you're compassionate, you make me feel better. This is what people will say. What do people say about you? Do you have people saying, you make me feel better? Your outlook supports me and bolsters me. When you can do that, you become someone to watch. You become someone to follow. You become a role model. If any of you have kids out there, you know, don't we know this? They will model how we behave. They will model how we feel. They will model how we think, not what we tell them to do, but what they see us doing. So you become a role model for a positive person. Boy, I know I wanted to do that for my children. The third way it improves your life is it gives you greater impact and influence on your environment, your culture. You know, a lot of us are talking about what we're seeing on the world stage, in government, in politics. Well, if we go down the rabbit hole of just complaining with vitriol and hate, how's that going to work? We have to certainly call a spade a spade, but we can do it in a way that doesn't tear down, that doesn't make people feel worse. It can actually influence people to make a difference in a positive way. So important today, right? Does anyone know what I mean? The fourth way positivity improves your life is it literally boosts your immunity to negative things. So many people I know are so uber sensitive, hypersensitive. If someone looks at them the wrong way, if someone says something snarky, and let's face it, the world's gotten snarky. The world's gotten snarky. And if you're online, you're inundated with snark. I just wrote a post on how your snarkiness isn't helping you, but you gotta have boundaries. You've got. In one of the groups I run, we're talking about tough things, and a lot of people don't agree, and, my gosh, they can't handle it. Well, you've got to build your boundaries. You've got to boost your immunity so that you don't take it all on. And that's on you. Yeah, you know, there are ways. For instance, watching the news five hours a day can make you sick. There's research about it. Something like, you know, three minutes of negative news in the morning can actually impact negatively your whole day. You gotta build the boundary. You've gotta say no. You've gotta learn to watch the news in a way that doesn't make you feel sick. It's up to you. Okay. Number four. It inspires others around you to find the positive. So, you know, I. This is just how I approach things. Anytime something bad happens, and bad is so subjective, it's based on our expectations, which could be just out of thin air. But anytime something negative or challenging happens, I always say, what am I learning from this? I just saw a quote on the Forbes.com homepage. Go check it out. It's. And I'm forgetting who said it, but it's something like, if you're not failing, you're not learning. And if you're not learning, you're not growing something to that effect. But if you see failure as the end of the world, you don't see it that way. You see it that I'm a loser. I'm terrible, I'm not enough. I'm not worthy, I'm not competent. You're not seeing it for what it is. No, this is learning. Like, I have to make a big move today in something that I'm running, and people aren't going to like it. And I've learned an awful lot. And I'm going to get a lot of complaints about what I'm about to do, but I've decided it's the right thing for me. I've decided that as much as that may be letting some people down, I have to do. I have to honor my top priorities. But I've looked at what I've learned in the past year around this endeavor, and I got to tell you, I'm grateful for it. But in some ways, I feel like I failed a little bit. I'm not gonna look at it that way. I'm gonna look at it as, what have I learned here that's made me stronger, that's made me maybe a better helper in the world? All right. Strengthens you. It also positivity, helps you advocate for others in a way that's gonna get results. If you're negative, if you go into your boss and say, oh, gosh, you know, it's going very badly, this project, and we're not meeting our deadlines, we need more resources for that, how well is that going to go? That sounds like a big excuse. If you go into your boss, on the other hand, about everything the team is doing with the existing resources and rave about it and say, how effective they are, but say there's a gap in what they can accomplish, and that's because we need this amount of resources. Completely different story. One is a bunch of losers. Another is, wow, look at what we're accomplishing. But I'm telling you, if we could get, you know, $100,000 more on this project, this is what you're going to see. It completely changes what you get coming to you. More positivity also paves the way for more collaborative success rather than crushing competition. If you're negative, if you're always putting other people down, and if you're a narcissistic and it's all about you, you, you, you, you, where's the collaboration going to come? Positivity. Being able to see the strengths of other people. You know, I have a quiz, an action style quiz that helps you identify your dominant action style and leverage it. When you're able to do that and you know who you are uniquely and leverage it, you're not angry, you're not pissed. You're able to use yourself in service, and therefore you're able to see the gifts of other people who have the five different styles. Five different styles from yours because there are six. So let's say I'm the seeker, which I am. The seeker seeks to accomplish, but only when there's learning and growth involved. Well, when you're with, for instance, the challenger. The challenger is about challenging everything. Why do we have to do it like this? Why, why this project at all? Why does it have to be done next year? You know, why don't we look at it differently? Well, sometimes, for instance, the striver can't stand that thinking. The striver thinks. For God's sake, shut up. Challenger. Why are you turning everything over? We've already talked about this. This is the way we're going. Well, we need the challenger. Thank goodness for the challenger. So sometimes these styles clash. When you know and you love yours and are positive about it, you're going to be more positive about everybody else's style and you're going to do collaboration better and you're going to innovate better. All right, what else? It builds your reputation as someone worthy of trust and support. Negative people might have a little posse around them. Oh, thanks, Brenda. Thank you. They might have a posse around them that insulates them. A lot of narcissists have that. They bring a posse with them every job. But that posse is going to be limited. Right. So being positive and engaging positively with others builds your reputation as someone to trust. A Positive person who's empowered, doesn't backstab, doesn't want to rip people another one. Doesn't want to tear people down. Doesn't want to involve themselves in crushing competition. That hurts. Oh, hi Lynn. Hi Lynn. Lynn, I love that you're interested. So take my Lynn says, where can we find out more about the Striver Challenger seeker? Take my quiz. Kathy Caprino.com backslash action style quiz. You can take the quiz. I got an ebook coming out soon, in the next week or two that tells you all about all the other styles. But it'll tell you what your style is and it'll tell you the. The potential upside and the potential downside because we all have them. Our style is. Oh, thank you, Brenda. We have blind. Blind spots. We have blind spots and those blind spots can really hurt us. Alright, so do you want to be someone that someone trusts? Let me tell you something. When you're. I learned this the hard way. When you're standing around backstabbing and gossiping about somebody, you're actually sending out a message that you're not trustworthy. Because everybody knows this. If I'm gossiping about you, I'm gonna gossip. No, let's say it this differently. If I'm standing around gossiping about Sally, you gotta know it's gonna come back around and hit Sally. Gossipers are equal opportunity gossipers and equal opportunity naysayers. So you are actually sending out a message. Don't trust me, I'm not safe and I do harm with my words. Yeah. All right. Number nine. It helps you see positivity where others are hopeless. I would say that this is a gift of mine. I've always been able to do it. It comes naturally to me. But in coaching, for instance, when people come and say, oh Lord, I'm a loser. I've interviewed for 20 jobs and I'm not getting one of them. I'll have an innate ability to see what is the positive in that and what's the message, what's the information? It isn't that you're a loser. It's either that you're going for the wrong jobs or you don't want any of those jobs but you think you have to get them or you're presenting yourself in a way that isn't useful. So what? We'll change it. But you can really help other people. And you can when you see more positivity and more possibility. It's called a reframe. I learned this in therapy training. The reframe is telling a story that Fits the facts. We're not lying, we're not making things up. We're not exacerbate or that's not the word, exaggerating, embellishing. We're telling the truth, but we're telling it in a way that allows for the most positivity. So instead of I'm such a loser, I've gone after 20 jobs and I don't advance. What's another story to tell? Wow. I took a look at those 20 jobs and I actually don't want any of them. What I really want is to start my own business or, wow, I realize that I'm going for marketing jobs, but really it's branding that I want and that's different. Why don't I talk about all the branding I've done? Why don't I look for jobs that leverage that? Okay? That's what being positive allows you to do. And finally, the tenth way being more positive helps you is it brings to light your achievements and accomplishments rather than highlighting your failures. So, you know, I think I mentioned this recently. You know, when you're working somewhere, you, I'm sure you, you know what I mean, you'll have a chance to rub elbows with the president or the founder or the funder, high level, influential people. And when they say to you, hey, how's it going, Kathy? Are you going to talk about the negative? Eh, I've had a bad day. My team is making me nuts. No, why would you do that? What you want to do is talk about the achievements you're making. And I don't mean lie, I mean highlight what's going well, because what you highlight is what will be amplified if you tell the president. Actually, we had a really big challenge, but we overcame it and the team came together and actually I, I learned about Tim in a way, about his abilities with digital marketing and I really had no idea. So now I have another team member who's amazing with digital marketing. Talk about the good stuff because then you're going to get more of that. You know, I'm going to leave you with this idea. I work with people sometimes on their LinkedIn profiles and they've got words like somebody said the other day, you know, I work for free. You never want to say you work for free ever, because you're going to get more of what you put out there. So you're going to get a thousand people who want you for free. You might work pro bono and that's great. I do, once every quarter I do a pro bono talk or workshop, but I'M very boundaried about it. I'm very careful about who I do that for. But that's not something I'm going to post because I'm going to get a thousand requests for pro bono work. I'm going to post other things that I want to attract. Okay, so every word you put out, every word you say in every email, every word you use in your text, every emoji you choose, everything is either broadcasting positivity or broadcasting negativity. Which one do you want to be? So how we doing with time? Let me tell you a few. I'm just kind of winging it here. I want you to write your questions, if you would, how to be more positive. I'm going to give you a few tips. The very first thing is you have to gain greater awareness of yourself. You can't change this if you don't even know what you think. A lot of people can't answer what they think and what they believe and what they value. So for the next week, become incredibly aware of what you're thinking and your mood. When you get up in the morning, what's your mood? I know. For instance, I'm highly affected by the weather. And right now in Connecticut, it's been rainy for what feels like a month. It's rainy and dark and damp. And that affects me. I think it's the barometric pressure. It's my. My kind of sensitivity to yeast and mold. Oy, oy, yoyoi. So I'll wake up on a day like this not in a great mood. I have to shift it. I mean, I'm a completely different person from, or a little bit a different person from when it's sunny and warm. Who resonates with that? Well, I'm not going to let the whole day be ruined because it's rainy and damp. I can't. I can't. I've got too much going on that matters to me. So I have to actually shift myself. I have to shift my mood. I have to look at what I'm thinking. So gain awareness of your thoughts. Look at one of every time you have a negative thought, go, wow, there's one of those negative thoughts, and let it go. Start this week to be incredibly aware. Once you're aware, then you can start to shift it. Then you say, wow, okay, look what I just said about today. Look what I just said about this failed interview. Is that really true or is that just the chronic negative story I'm telling myself? Brene Brown talks about the stories we tell ourselves. Love her work. Look at the story you chronically tell yourself. You know, there are people in my life that chronically tell a very pathetic story about who they are, and it's just not true. But that's how they're so habituated to seeing it. Darn it. No matter how much I try to change that for them, they won't let it in because that's a little bit more where they're comfortable. That's the final thing I'll share. When you're more positive, bigger opportunities come to you. And you know, as they say, the wider you spread your wings, the more things you bump into. So it can be uncomfortable being more positive because you can bring bigger and bigger and bigger things. Anybody have heard of the book the Big Leap by Gay Hendricks? Amazing. It's about an upper limit problem that most of us have and how it's formed and what the problem is and why. That upper limit to success, to love, to money, to health, stops us. And if you're not aware of that upper limit problem, that upper limit that you have, it's going to sabotage any success, any love, any health that goes above that. You gotta push that limit up through conscious awareness and inner shifting. But you can do it. Let me tell you, I was not the positive person I am now. Years ago, I was negative. I was downtrodden. I felt diminished, demeaned. I felt victimized, and I felt out of control. And my life showed it. But 15 years later, I can tell you that this works. If you want to learn more about how to shift your career, read my book, Breakdown Breakthrough. Follow me on Kathy Caprino.com, you know, sign up for my newsletter. There's posts, there's articles, there's videos, there's resources, there's quizzes. I'm there for you. I would love to help you become more positive this year, this month. All right, folks, let me take some questions. Type them, type them, type them. Why can't we answer what we think? What says Sherry? Why aren't some of us more self aware? It's not because I'm not sensitive. Sherry, do you feel that you're not self aware? I'm going to tell you this. So much of who we are is formed in childhood. If you've watched this, you know that many of us have had emotional manipulation in our lives, in our upbringing as children. Oh, thanks, Mary Beth. So we were trained not to acknowledge what we feel. We were trained not to say what we think because we were punished. There is so much emotional manipulation going on in Families. A lot of parents are well meaning, but they squash a child's independent thinking. How dare you say that? How dare you think that? Well, when you hear that enough, you just go underground. One of my course members told me she lives in Africa. They say shut up. To their. To her children. Shut up. And finally the little girl is shutting up. She's not saying anything anymore. That's why. Sherry, is this true? Yeah. So that's why so many women. And here's another thing. Women are taught to be pleasing, to be alluring, to be demure, to be. To not be forceful, to not be assertive. So we stop saying it and the research proves this over and over. We stop saying it and we stop thinking it. And we stop believing that we're strong because we're not acting. Because we're not allowed to act. Strong and confident and assertive and forceful. There's a million reasons. But I would say to you, Sherry, it's time that you start looking at your thoughts. It's not hard. It's not brain science. It's stop and think. What am I thinking right now? And in fact, get more in tune with your body. Like for me, I can feel things in my stomach when I'm very upset. My stomach gets wonky. I feel things in my throat. Any of you read my book know I had tracheitis, an infection of the trachea. For four years, every three months, I would lose my voice and it would be burning and I'd have this horrible green infection. And no one could heal it. And no one. Until I went to an energy healer and two of them and they said, you know, this is a crying within. This is you not speaking up and you not being true. There's signs everywhere of what you believe and what you think. You got to listen to them. Ask yourself, what am I thinking right now? What am I feeling? When you feel bad, when you lose your voice, when your stomach. I remember years ago, the first time I was a coach and I was going to a chamber of commerce event and I was going to say I was a coach, I was sick to my stomach. That's where I feel it when I'm nervous. Where do you feel it? That's a sign of what you're worried about. You can do it. All right. Ta. Hi. Alright, once you are aware, what else can you do? For example, I do a gratitude journal. Each morning it helps me. I realize what's amazing. Awesome. Well, you know, I'm gonna point you to Shawn Achor's 21 day happiness challenge. He has five steps. Just look at Shawn Achor Achor Happiness Challenge and you can find it on my podcast@cathyandmoe.com you can find him in my Forbes blog. There are five journaling for gratitude. Random acts of kindness where you're actually being kind and you're putting out your positivity. There's exercise where you are engaging your body and you're also taking time for yourself and that that makes you more happy and positive. Follow Shawn's work. It's amazing. But Da, what do you feel that you're challenged with most? Do you feel like you're a negative person? I'm going to even say something more adventurous. Some people need energy healing. I've been engaged in energy healing. I've trained as an energy healer in Reiki. Lynn Carroll is the energy healer. I send so many people to. Some people have negativity and trauma lodged in their energy system and it's not coming out and they can't get it out. Energy healing. You know, I even go to a massage therapist where I live. She's a healer. I leave that therapy massage changed. So sometimes if no amount of work, no amount of therapy is changing you. It's an energy problem and you need energy healing. You can write me for more, but check out Lynn Carroll, the Therapy space dot com. I can't recommend her highly enough. I hope that's helpful. Yeah, always count your blessings. What a beautiful way to end it. You know, I read somewhere Da says I have a serious face when I'm thinking there's a funny video, resting bitch face. Excuse my. Have you ever seen it? It's really fun. It's a funny, a satire on people who have these negative faces, bitch faces. And it just made me laugh what you said. So is your serious face getting in the way? Are people not liking it? Are people responding negatively? Maybe your face. But if you're saying that it's upsetting you, then then you want to change that. Have done energy healing. Yay. And she helped Debbie. So happy to hear it. Lynn is. Is an angel on earth. There are some people, I think Lorna Byrne, who see physically sees angels. You can check out my webinar on my YouTube channel, Kathy Caprino. It was an hour and a half webinar with Lorna. She resonates differently from other people. You just feel basking, basked. Love and compassion and positivity. Lynn is one of those people as well. I want to be one of those people. I have a ways to go, that's for sure. But I know that I feel so much better and happier and more connected to the world and the universe and other people when I'm positive. I hope that's helpful, everybody. Thank you. And the next one of these videos, the live videos, will be a month from now, in July. Just stay tuned for that. And in the meantime, I hope this helps you shift to recognize the amazingness of you and to be positive and grateful. Oh, how beautiful. Thank you. Positive and positive and grateful and appreciative of who you are, because who you are is amazing. All right, everyone, thanks so much, and I'll see you next month. Bye.