93. Donald Sandel: Author of Positive Mindshift

Hello, Book Thinkers family, and welcome to episode number 93 of our personal development podcast, Book Thinkers: Life-Changing Books. During each episode, we interview one of the world's top authors, and as a listener, you can expect to discover new books, new mentors, and new resources that you can use to achieve more and live better. In this episode, we have the pleasure to interview author Donald Sandell.

Hi, Nick.

Don is a dynamic presenter, a self-proclaimed pathological extrovert, and he brought his fun and irreverent brand of humor to our conversation today. He has spent the last decade studying the brain and the power of positive influence. Don is the founder of Go Positive, which offers keynotes and workshops as a solution to engagement, well-being, and performance. Our conversation today is all about positive mind shift, making good things happen in life and work. If you're someone like me who has struggled with negative bias, this conversation is for you. We talk about the downsides to negative thinking and how anyone, yes, even you, can have a positive mindset with the right tools and practices in place. Now, without further ado, please enjoy this amazing conversation with Donald Sandell.

Don, welcome to the Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books Podcast. How are you doing today?

Doing great. How are you?

We are in good company. So I'm very excited for today's conversation. For those in the Book Thinkers audience that are not familiar with you or your book or your business, I would love to have you kick off today's show by introducing yourself to everybody.

Sure. Hi everybody. I'm Don Sandell and I recently published the book Positive Mindshift and Nick is gonna show you. Thanks, Nick. And, and Luke, you got it right there. Awesome. Thanks, guys. Um, yeah, I spent, uh, 35 years in the corporate world, mostly running leadership development, fell in love with this topic, spent over a decade researching it, and now I run the company Go Positive.

Now, you open your book Positive Mindshift with a quick word on positive reflections. So I'd love to have you describe what those are to the listeners.

Yeah, it's, it, you know, you can read a book on one level, first layer of the onion. And, and what I'm really hoping is that when people read the book, that it inspires them, it motivates them, um, it gets them to be really intentional about their new behaviors. Um, and, and part of that is this idea of just reflecting on some of the key parts of the book. It's so easy to race through a book. I purposely, with my editors and with my publisher, wrote this so that the book can be pretty much completed in right around 3 hours. But take that time to really reflect on, on the key parts so that it becomes part of your, your new behaviors.

Now, before we dive into the meat and potatoes of the book, the other question that I like to ask just to kick things off and so that people can get to know you is, who is the target reader for this book? When you were writing it, Who did you have in mind? Who did you think was going to pick this up and be able to use it to create real behavior change?

You know, I couldn't help because I spent so many decades in the corporate world, think that corporations, organizations creating positive teams, a positive culture, moving that engagement and wellbeing vector from left to right, that was kind of that natural inclination. That's part of my audience. But there's another part of the audience where I go, I think just about, especially in today's environment, just about anybody can find value in this. So it's not 100% written for the corporate executive. It's also written for you and me and the people that we love, that if we can shift from that negative default to a positive default, we're going to lead a much more successful and thriving life.

Now, Don, I have— before we get into the book too, I have a question for you. Do you consider yourself a naturally positive person? Now, I'm a very— I have always considered myself a very naturally negative person, and that my mindset has definitely changed on that over the years. And after reading your book, it's changed even more, which I'm super happy about. But I know there's a lot of skeptics out there that do have this naturally occurring negative thoughts.

Yeah.

And I'm just wondering, do you— are, are you a naturally negative person or do you tend to lean to the positive naturally?

You know, I know we're gonna get into this, but Luke, let me first establish the fact that we all have a negativity bias. No matter how positive the three of us are, or the people listening to the podcast, no matter how positive we are, we have a negativity bias, right? That's the way our brain functions. It's always out there looking for danger, threats, and negativity. So, so let's establish that as a foundation. But to be honest with you, to be honest with you. Um, I think the people around me mostly would say, no, Don tends to be a positive guy. But this has been a, a decades-long transition because I probably foundationally probably leaned more like most of the listeners, probably leaned more toward the negative, right? And it was work and it was interventions and it was really paying attention to my behavior, my language, and my self-talk.

That's amazing. I can't wait to go back through the book. I've actually, I have so many things highlighted and you have amazing activities in there that I'm really excited to dive deeper in, deep, more deeply into. And I'm just excited because for myself, like I've always said over many years, I have said that I'm a negative person, negative person. It wasn't until very recently, probably in the last like 3 months or so, where I finally realized I'm like, I'm actually now a positive person and it's taken so much time and so much practice to finally get there. But it's really cool that you actually put all these, these practices right in your book, which makes it— the book feel very active and living. And I love when we can do that. Um, I know Nick had something to say about the introduction of the book, so before we get into all the, all the chapters, I'll let him, let him speak.

Yeah, no, and, and Don, I wanted to touch on this too, is that Luke and I, we were together this past week and we were talking a little bit about what he just mentioned, which is that For most of his life, he was considering himself to be a negative person, but all of this personal development sort of put him in this place where he defaults to positive thinking now. So, it's really cool how that can happen. When was the shift for you when you became certain in your life that, hey, I'm a positive person, you know, this is important to me?

It probably before I started doing the positive psychology research and diving into the the neuroscience, it probably was not an intentional thing, or at least a conscious thing. I knew that I could get better. I knew that I should be better. And especially since I led leadership development, that, you know, you should probably do so positively. Um, but it really wasn't until I started to dive into the research going, wow, this is, this is profound, that this is life-changing, that our outcomes are predictable based on our mindset, right? Whatever we put into the computer is what comes out of the computer. So, if we put positivity into the computer, the outcome is going to be positive. And once I realized that and understood that, I go, I can make a couple of minor changes and this is going to affect my life.

Yeah. Well, we'll get into those in a minute. You kicked off the book with a story about Chuck Pearson. Could you tell that story for everybody?

Yeah. And it's not an easy one. To talk about, to, to be honest with you. Chuck was a dear friend of mine. He and I worked together at a large company based out of Chicago. Um, actually, it was a Japanese company, but we worked together, and he was just one of those guys.

Mm-hmm.

And, and both Luke and Nick, you guys have met people like this. They're positive, they're bright, they build authentic relationships very naturally. And Chuck was just one of those people. Well, the sad thing was, is that he ended up being diagnosed with cancer, and he fought this brave, brave battle and continued to lead positively. He continued, when I would talk with him, and in fact, his directors would share the same thing with me, that he would ask about them and their families and how they were doing instinctively, very naturally. That was very Chuck. Despite the fact that he was, he was going through radiation treatment and chemotherapy, and it was tearing up his body, he remained positive throughout this thing, selfless throughout this struggle, and focused on other people throughout this struggle. It was inspiring to watch. Unfortunately, he succumbed to this disease, and he ended up dying. And it was just one of those things that moved people, moved an entire organization, and everybody that loved him and that cared about him. But the thing that everybody talked about with, with regard to Chuck was his courage, but just his positive legacy, the way that through all of this, he still maintained that positive attitude. And it was— it's— I took a risk beginning, beginning a book on positivity with that story. But if people understood just his legacy and how positive he was, I thought that was also something that we could all grow and learn from.

Yeah, my takeaway from that is that people remember how you make them feel. And if you want to leave a positive legacy, you've got to put positivity out in the world.

And boy, did he personify that. And that's why I took the risk to begin the book with that story. And I'm glad, Nick, that that's what you got out of it.

Yeah, it was a really, really powerful story. Actually, when I first read through it, I had to pause, take a deep breath, and reflect on that because the courage that that takes to remain positive during a very negative and traumatic event is inspiring. It really is. Your book, it's about having a positive mindset, and with that, we can have a happier life. We all seem to want it, but we don't really plan for it. You talk a little bit about that in the book, about how we have to have an active plan to be happy. Why do you think that is?

Yeah, behavior change isn't going to happen without intention. So, I have a whole chapter in there on intention and choice, and I talk about it throughout the book because if we don't pause, And decide to make the choice to be different and better. Have that intention to actually change a couple of our behaviors. That's all we need to do. This is not necessarily rocket science. This is not about changing profoundly your life. It is a series of small steps, wise steps, evidence-based steps. That take us to that positive place that helps us produce those positive outcomes. But behavior change is never going to happen without first that intention to do so.

Behavior change is a subject that we talk a lot about. We talk a lot about at Book Thinkers because so many people, they pick up a book like this, they read it, they think, oh wow, Don's so positive. He makes seeming positive seem so beneficial to our lives, but then they fail to take action on the book. So, what are some recommendations that you'd have for somebody who's excited about reading this book that's listening today but says like, how do I get the most out of it? Like, how would you read this book?

Yeah. And I mentioned that I worked hard with my editors and my publisher to move it from a 5-hour read and cut it down and keep it to about that 3-hour read. I worked hard to do that. But first is that intention. And at the beginning of the book, we talk about that intentionality. But then there is that second layer of the onion, or that third, that deeper layer of the onion I want people to peel back. And that is that at the end of every chapter, there is a specific activity related to that chapter. Well, I'm encouraging people to, yes, read the book, pause, take notes like Luke talked about doing, annotate the book. Look at the back pages because I have literally hundreds of reference points because of all the research that was done on the book. But, but you have to read it at first of all that first level that says, okay, I'm getting this, I'm inspired, I appreciate this. But then read it at that second level that says, how can I take this deeper and actually affect my life? And that's not going to happen without intention, right? Behavior change doesn't happen without intention. But to be honest with you, and this is the way that we designed it, it's not going to happen if we don't really take a look at those activities at the end of each chapter and actually do those activities.

Got to do the work. Always comes down to that. Well, I'd be remiss if we didn't mention, I know this is a book about positivity, but it also talks about negativity. And as someone who has struggled over the years with negative thoughts and letting them run my, almost my everyday life, to be honest, I'd like to ask, how do we begin to, how do we begin to remove our negative beliefs? And do you believe it's possible for everyone?

I absolutely do believe it's possible. If you learned these habits, if you learn these behaviors, you can unlearn them, right? So genetically, from an evolution perspective, we all have this negativity bias, but that doesn't mean it can't be changed. We're not prisoners to evolution. We're not prisoners to genetics. In fact, there's some really interesting research by Fredrickson and a couple other people in And they, they, it's well known as the twin study. And, and they, they studied identical twins that were separated at birth. And it was very interesting because they determined that somebody's happiness is about 40% genetic. Okay. And the other 10% is based on life circumstances. And you would think intuition tells us that life circumstances is actually a larger chunk. But the research says no, not really. It's only about 10%. The other 40%, in terms of defining your happiness, defining your positive emotions, defining your life satisfaction, 40% is up to intention, intentional choices, intentional behaviors, those things that we do and say and act The way we interact, the way we talk to ourselves, the choices that we make. Still, 40% of our positive emotions is up to our choices and our behaviors. And I think that's really profound because that means that, yes, Luke, to directly answer your question, we can all move that. We can all change that. And we all should. And here's the reason why. Here's the reason why we should. Because when we shift from that negative default to a positive default, we almost ensure that we are going to increase the amount of positive outcomes, right? Our physiology changes, our mindset changes, our relationships change, our relationship with the world changes, and it helps us enable positive outcomes.

One really cool example of removing negative beliefs and not buying into them so much is Roger Bannister. And you kick off chapter 1 talking about his story. So here's my question. Who can run a faster mile, you or Roger Bannister?

I'm gonna give it to Bannister by far. Remember when he did— when he broke the 4-minute mile barrier? It was 1954. He was, he was in medical school at the time. Um, he didn't have the shoes, he didn't have the track, he didn't have the diet and the exercise program that we had. And everybody said that it couldn't and it shouldn't be done, but he but he did it. And and Nick, I know this wasn't the point, and you were having fun with me. But but here's the wonderful point about the Bannister story: is that obviously for years and years and years, forever of time, people were trying to break that four-minute mile. Nobody could do it. 1954, Bannister does it in 46 days late later later. Guy by the name of John Landy from Australia. He breaks the 4-minute mile barrier. Later that year, 4 other people broke the 4-minute mile barrier. And that is the power of our mind because it wasn't physical. It was mental. It was mindset.

That's one of my favorite stories because I actually, I tell myself that one pretty often. Another one of my favorites is the Wright brothers. I, I don't have any tattoos like Nick, but I always say the first tattoo I'm going to get is going to be the Wright Brothers airplane because it was something that was thought to be impossible, like man flying. And so many people tried to do it. They had everything going against them, and yet they still overcame and did it. And I think a lot of it just came down to, to the mindset. Now, if, if a positive mindset like has such a, a positive effect on our life and can make our life better, why do you think we feel Why do you think we feel so much resistance when it comes to having a positive mindset?

Because we're surrounded by negativity. That's one thing. But again, because, because naturally, that's the way that we are designed. Remember, the primary function of our brain is, is our survival, not our life satisfaction, unfortunately. Right? So, so we have a brain that again is always out there looking for negativity, threats, and danger. So, so, so, Luke, when, when we have, when you have, when I have a negative mindset and we're kind of consumed by this negativity and, and, uh, we're in fight, flight, or freeze, and so the limbic system is in charge. And when the limbic system is in charge, that's the emotional part of our brain right in the center of our brain.

Yeah.

We have, for instance, less impulse control. When we have this negative mindset, we have less cognitive ability, we have less social-emotional ability, we have less physical ability, because what's happening is the brain is actually shutting down certain parts of it so it can really just focus on our survival. But what does that mean for our outcomes? Well, that limits then our outcomes, right? So let's, let's move. Let's talk about being more positive. So what happens to our physiology when we have a positive mindset? Our brains change, our guts change, our chemicals change, our blood changes, our neurons change, even our tissues change. That's the physiology. That's a physiological change. When I talk about, look, this is more than just a social virtue. This is more than Luke, Nick, and Don just being really nice guys. We go through physical changes when we have this, this positive mindset. Let me talk about that just a little bit further. So when we're able to switch to the positive mindset, that means now our prefrontal cortex is in charge. That's the rational part of the brain. That's the executive function part of our brain. That's the newest part of our brain. And when that happens, we have the full capacity of our brain. We have the full capacity of our physical attributes, our cognitive attributes. and our social emotional abilities. So, so we can build those authentic relationships. With a negative mindset, physically, it's, it's physically difficult to even have empathy for another person.

Right?

But when you have that, that positive mindset, the prefrontal cortex is in charge and you have the full capacity of your brain. It literally, literally becomes a multiplier For all your other skills and all your other abilities.

Yeah, that's incredible. You also talk about, so we have all these, we have these, these beliefs that we have all these negative beliefs, and you have said that the relationships around us are really important. They're a really important factor to our positive mindset. And I definitely believe that. I think the average of the 5 people that we hang out around the most are who we become. I have noticed that in the last couple of years of my life when I've started changing the people I'm around, I've actually changed myself. And what I found really fascinating was not only is like your mindset and everything affected, but also your age. Could you expound upon that and why do you think that is?

So, Luke, ask the question again. Are you getting at longevity or are you— what are you getting at?

Yeah, longevity. So, it stood out to me that you, I think it was in the, it was in the end of the first chapter that you talked about a 50-year-old versus another 50-year-old and the people around them, the relationships that they had, had a big effect on their actual like biological age. So, I guess that is my question. Like, how does having, how does relationships affect your longevity? And like, why do you think that is?

Yeah, there's multiple studies. Boy, there's there's so much packed into that question, Luke. There there really there really is. So first of all, when we have a positive mindset, we actually boost our immune system, right? But we also improve our cardio, improve improve our brain health. We improve our blood flow. We get the release of our happy chemicals: dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, endorphins. All of those combinations gets to those physical attributes of having this positive mindset. And that all works toward creating a healthier you. I mean, just think in the last couple of years how important the immune system is, right?

Yeah.

And how we compromise our immune system with a negative mindset and we literally boost our immune system with a positive mindset. But they've done some interesting studies. One is a classic study out of, I believe it's University of Kentucky, called, called the Nun Study. And I think I wrote about it in the book. Do you mind if I tell quickly the, the Nun Study?

Oh, please do.

It's actually one of my favorite because it's just, it's just so interesting. So when young ladies— this, they went back to the turn of the century, turn of the 20th century. And when young ladies would desire to become nuns, they would write at the beginning of their careers, long, expansive autobiographies. Right? So what the researchers did, present-day researchers went back to almost 1,000 of these long, expansive autobiographies. And they put them, they put them into 4 different categories: really happy nuns, kind of happy nuns, not so happy nuns, and really unhappy nuns. So, so they put them into these 4 different categories, then They, they tracked the lives, right? And all those, those sisters were, were by now that the researchers, they were all passed away. But then they, they did the research and looked at their lives, looked at their health, looked at their relationships, their work success, and their physical health. Now, it's actually, think about it for a second from a statistical analysis perspective. Nuns is really a great group to do this research on because it really mitigates a lot of the external factors that could affect the study, right? They all wore the same clothes, they all ate the same food, lived in the same place, reported to the same person. So, so it was really a great group to study. And what they determined is, by far, this was not a statistical anomaly at all. That, that the most happy nuns far outlived the least happy nuns, had more successful lives, were better, had healthier relationships, less physical ailments, and performed better at their jobs.

I have a couple follow-up questions on this because it's a subject that people ask the Book Thinkers community all the time. Okay, so it's clear that having a positive circle, the people that you spend the most time with, will boost all of these things, and it'll help you at a subconscious level be more positive as well. But if somebody is listening today and they find themselves in the middle of a circle full of negative people, people that complain, people that criticize, people that don't have a positive outlook on the future, what recommendations do you have in terms of starting to change that circle? Do you say burn bridges? Do you say just replace them with more positive people, like go out and find mentors? Like, what are some action steps? To go in that positive direction.

And each situation is different, right? Each relationship is different. Nick, it's funny that you brought that up. When I first was getting requests to speak to large organizations and audiences, I would from the stage say, and stop hanging out with negative people. If they're negative, get rid of them. But then I started to think about that. I go, Don, you have some negative people in your life and you still love them, you still care about them. So this is an opportunity for the ones that you really love and you really care about, and maybe they're family, whatever, and you're not going to get rid of them just for practical purposes. You care about them, then you got to work on them. Give them that honest feedback. Look, this is coming from love.

But give them a copy of this book.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you for the marketing aspect of that comment. Thank you, Nick. Is I care about you and I want you to know this is coming from a good place. Is for the last 10 minutes, you're just talking about negative things, complaining. How does that serve you? What good does that do? That's one of the questions that I ask in the book. And I, and I ask people to think about that, often say to themselves when they have these moral ethical choices, how does it serve you? And if it's not serving you, change it. So, so my encouragement is really evaluate each individual relationship. And do you have the opportunity to move them, to change them, to encourage them? Remember, That our behavior is a contagion, right? So part of it is also us being the change we want to see in the world. If I may quote Gandhi, right? We need to be the change that we want to see in the world. So first of all, know that our behavior is a contagion. But if you love that person and you're going to keep that person around, time for open feedback. Finally, I'll close with this. I have a dear person in my life who in many of our conversations, most of them were phone conversations. Again, the first 10 minutes was just Just whining and complaining. And then I would say, all right, tell me something good. And this person not only would then tell me something good, but they knew exactly what I was doing.

Yeah, I love that. I'll wrap up my question and your answer with a tattoo that I have on my wrist, the numbers 1, 2, and 3. And that's because for years I would journal about 3 things I was grateful for on a daily basis to help my default become more positive. Because when you're practicing gratitude, there's no room for negativity. And so what I'll try to do sometimes with people who are complaining or negative, I'll introduce them to my tattoo and I'll say, what are 3 things that you're grateful for? And they'll stop and they'll be like, oh geez, I wasn't thinking about that. It's like, well, that's the activity that you have to consciously focus on in order to be a little bit more positive. So I love what you said. I think those are great recommendations.

So, Nick, thanks for bringing up this, this concept of, of gratitude. And I think you were spot on with that. You know, when I speak to audiences, especially, especially when I have an audience that is full of executives, I feel a little bit of resistance, or at least a little bit of cognitive dissonance, because they feel that that's a little bit of a, a soft topic. But I don't think in the realm of positive psychology research there is anything researched more Or advocated more than this concept of gratitude. Because one, when you're doing the gratitude exercise and you're in that mode of feeling gratitude, you're that you are in gratitude, you have positive emotions. So you're pushing back on negativity and negativity bias, and you're not thinking negative thoughts. You are thinking positive thoughts. The other thing that's very, very interesting is this is the way our brain works, is our brain loves novelty. It loves new patterns. Well, by introducing this new pattern into your life of thinking gratitude, and I would encourage everybody to do an activity where it's just simply what are 3 things that you are grateful for? Spend just a couple of minutes letting those 3 things sink in. Does not take— need to take a whole lot of time. Do it about— the research tells us do it about every other day. Don't do it every day because it becomes rote. Do it about every other day. The brain, the nervous system in the brain will pick up on this new behavior and these new positive emotions. And after about 45 days, the nervous system is going, oh, I see what you're doing, and I'll take over from here. So I would really encourage, what are 3 things that you are grateful for? Let them sink in, take a little bit of a deep breath, and then get on with the rest of your day.

I have one follow-up question, which is the research that says do it every other day. Could you talk a little bit more about that? Because that's really interesting.

Yep. Yep. This is what the research tells us. And this is from Dr. Sonia Lubomirsky, who's out of University of California, I think Irvine. Wonderful researcher. She really, really is, is a great researcher. And In her research around gratitude, what she's discovered is 2 things. One, if you do it every day, it becomes rote. And if it becomes rote and you're tired of it, you can't be original with it, you're just going to stop doing it. So that is part of her motivation and part of her research that says, you know, do it about every other day, maybe 3 or 4 times a week, so that it still energizes you and you're still looking forward to doing it. That's, that's really what the logic is.

I love that. You know, gratitude is something that I've been actively practicing for the last, well, the last 2 years. And BookThinkers actually has a gratitude room that they have every morning. And it was, I was in there yesterday doing my gratitude and it's amazing to see the change just in myself with sharing gratitude every day. And I have really I've come a long way in the last 5, 6 years, and it's really cool just to see how gratitude can have an effect on you. And it takes time. It takes time to feel it, to do it. But man, when you can keep it up, it's life-changing. It really is. With that, you talk in your book a little bit about riches and success and how that doesn't necessarily go hand in hand. with happiness. So, why do you think that is? Do you think if people had gratitude for those things, maybe that would change it a little bit? But I would love you to expound upon that.

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Yeah, the way that most people are pursuing happiness is probably wrong, right? Our environment, our marketing, our society, our culture kind of seems to teach that you'll be happy when you get the big house in the suburbs. You'll be happy when you get the shiny new car. You'll be happy when you have the perfect spouse. And that's what, what people think is going to make them ultimately happy. But what the researchers have discovered, and this is irrefutable research, irrefutable proof, duplicated research that says, you know, those things are temporary. And on a temporary basis, getting those things is indeed kind of gonna raise your positive emotions. But those are all temporary, right? Because, because the brain moves the goalposts as to what really makes you happy, right? You keep, you keep going on this hedonic treadmill where you keep pursuing things to make you happy. So the things in our life that we think make us happy don't sustain us happy, happy for the long term, right? That's only short-term happiness. So what, what we advocate is, is what the research tells us. And the research tells us that the things that really sustain our happiness for the long term are things like we've already been talking about: building authentic relationships. Doing the gratitude exercise, thinking with gratitude as often as as you can, but doing that exercise about every other day, hanging out with other positive people, doing acts of kindness. Acts of kindness is what and and by the way, all of do doing all of these behaviors based on the research, we also get a release. We get a physiological change. Think about the last time. You did a real act of kindness for somebody. So I'm gonna— let me— I'm gonna put you guys on the spot. Last time you guys did an act of kindness, define that however you want. When you did that act of kindness, how did you feel afterwards?

I'll go first. I would say the act of kindness was this sitting. I have a son. I have a 5-year-old son, and I love him to death. But sometimes he can get really, you know, frustrating with asking a lot of questions, lots of questions. Um, but yesterday I decided, I was like, all right, I have time. I'm gonna sit here and I'm gonna— I'm just gonna answer every one of his questions. And man, he lit up so much. I was like, all right, Ezra, I'm setting a timer. Got 30 minutes. I'm answering every one of your questions. And I, I allowed him just to ask questions and I answered what I could. We Googled some stuff together. We looked up some— some answers in some books. It was a great time. But afterwards, I felt amazing. It was great, not only like spending time with my son, but also like, I felt like that was a great act of kindness. And I actually, now that I've done that practice, I want to do it almost every day because I know it made him feel great and it made me feel great. What about you, Nick?

Yeah, I love it. Great story, Luke.

So I had a conversation earlier today with an author who is interested in one of the services that Book Thinkers offers. But she wasn't in a position where she was able to pay full price for it. Now, I'm a supporter of her work and I thought she'd be a great fit for the video services that we offer. And so I said, you know what, I'm willing to compromise, like I'm willing to discount this and do it at cost because she was so grateful for the work that we had already done. And she was just so complimentary and thankful for that. And, you know, that one's tied to money, so maybe it's a little bit of a cop-out, but It felt great. Like she was just so thankful for us willing to make less money to help support her book and put it in the hands of the right people. And so, yeah, it felt great. And that was a conversation that I had already told a couple of people about today, and it only happened today. So that's how great it made me feel. I wanted to tell other people about it.

Yeah, I love it. Another great story, Nick. Nick and Luke, thanks for doing those acts of kindness. And when I hear the acts of kindness, I feel how you guys felt. I could hear it. Now, we don't feel great in positive emotions just because we have positive emotions. There is a chemical release again: dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, endorphins. We get a release of those chemicals when we do those acts of kindness. So you feeling good after doing those acts of kindness is a physiological change, right? So did we help the other person? Yes. Did we improve society? Did we improve the community? Yes. All those things are true and should be the Motivation behind doing acts of kindness, but we also help ourselves, right? So, so it's, it's really profound, the research around that, how it also changes us. In fact, they have a name for it. They call it the helper's high, right? So I want to encourage that. But again, that's just one of those things that if we could do more of those, are we improving society? Yes, but we're also helping ourselves as well. And, and there's Literally dozens of research-based interventions or new behaviors for all of us to sustain our positive emotions long term. So it's not the purchase of the house and the shiny new car. It's really about sustaining it long term. And again, I hate to do this, but the book, the book, the book has, has, has a bunch of those suggestions. In the book, and every single one of those suggestions are based on the research.

No, I think, I think it's, I think it's perfect to highlight the book because our listeners and viewers are here to discover new books and new authors like you and your book. So that's the perfect plug.

Well, thank you, Nick.

Yeah. What are some things that you do on a daily basis, like gratitude, or on an every other day basis, like gratitude, that consistently reinforce your happiness and your positive mindset?

Yeah. Yeah. It is the building of the authentic relationships that— now, I have an advantage. I am a natural, if not pathological extrovert. So, improving relationships and looking forward to relationships and my friends and family and even meeting new people is very easy for me. So I'm lucky in that, but I really focus on that, and that is one of the things that I just get so much positive emotion and long-term happiness from. Of course, I do the gratitude activity. I actually have it in my calendar every other day, and I encourage people— you guys saw this in the book— I encourage people to leverage technology. So I have reminders in my Outlook calendar as recurring events to remind me to do the things that I might just forget because life takes over. So I also meditate. I wish I could meditate a little bit longer, but I'm meditating at least once every single day. Right? And maybe it's as short as 3 to 5 minutes, but it gets me back control of my own brain. And I can get, I can get to that zen feeling now. In about three to five minutes, because I've been doing this for a while, and boy does that center me. It gets me focused on the moment, and it really gives me back control of of my own brain. And then I I also have this in the book Positive Mind Shift. I also have this in the book. I I take my meds, and in in in in the book meds is meditation. Exercise, diet, and sleep. If you just improve on each one of those—not perfect, but better—if you just improve on each one of those, meditate a little bit more. Exercise is prodigious in terms of how exercise can change your positive emotions. That is when I coach people. That is one of the things that I really focus on: changing your diet. There is research. About how the diet changes our body, but it also changes our brain and changes our mind. And then the infinite, infinite power of getting a good night's rest, because that is when our body regenerates, when we consolidate learning. And here's the interesting thing: when you get a good night's rest, the brain actually cleanses itself. Now, this is really, really interesting, and a lot of research on this. If you get a good night's rest, The spinal spinal fluid will go into the cerebral cortex, the macaroni part of your brain right here. The cerebral cortex will will open up ever so slightly. Spinal fluid would go through throughout your brain, clean out the dead neurons, clean out the toxins, and guess how long that process takes? About seven or eight hours. So you want a healthy brain? Get your sleep.

Yeah, all those things are so, so important. I know we are kind of running a little bit short on time. I think Nick's gonna have to go here in a minute, but I did have 2 more, I think 2 more questions that I wanted to ask. I had, I mean, I had a lot more, but I think these ones are the ones that stood out to me and I think would be helpful for our listeners. One is the importance of purpose. I ask that because it's something that I've actually had a lot of conversations around. Recently, and it seems like everyone kind of describes it differently and everyone has a different idea of what purpose is. And some people say we only have one purpose and that's it. So I would love to, I would love to know your thoughts around purpose, the importance of purpose, and if you believe that we each have like one underlying purpose that like can push us through life.

Yeah, purpose is really important. Again, the research around it, purpose is that just that general direction in life. And the research tells us that people who have that purpose, not just a general in the ether, I think I kind of have a purpose, but you've actually thought about it and you've actually written it down. In fact, I have an exercise in the book about writing out your purpose. And some of the research says that people that have purpose are, are, have more positive emotion, have more life satisfaction, are healthier. Um, there, there's one study that determined that people that had purpose in life, that factor overcame things like exercise, diet, smoking, that all you had to do is really have that tight, defined purpose. Now it can change, but you're actually, you know what your purpose is. It can have that much effect on you and your health. By just knowing that general direction in life, I found that research really, really interesting.

That's fascinating. Do you do you have your purpose written out anywhere? Would you mind sharing that with our audience?

It it is simply this: to find joy and share joy.

I love that.

Yeah, I love that because I find for me to keep things really simple. That way, I'm going to remember it and live it and manifest it. So, find joy. Actually, it's seek joy, share joy. Seek joy, share joy.

Seek joy and share joy. I love that. Nick, did you have any other questions you want to ask before I ask my final one?

Well, no, I'll just make a comment that, Don, I love your energy and I love that purpose as well. I've defined my purpose as helping other people make Progress. Progress is sort of my big word, helping other people make progress in their health, wealth, and happiness by connecting them to the books that can help them do so. So that's my purpose.

I love it. Awesome, Nick.

That's great. And I'm, I'm still working. I feel like I'm still working on my purpose, but to make it, to really simplify it really, but I believe in helping people as well. And my overall arching purpose is what I, what I say anyway is That I believe in helping people to make their day better. And I think if you can have a better day, you can have a better week, you can have a better month, you can have a better year and a better life. So yeah, my final question is—

I want to encourage you guys both to do this. Remember I said leverage technology in your pursuit of this thriving, flourishing life, right?

Yes.

And you should see, I've got notes all over mine. So leverage technology. So at the beginning of each day, let's just say that you guys go to your computers your email 7 AM. Maybe the first thing in your calendar could be your purpose so that you don't have to do anything other than the fact that you see that clear and present at the beginning of every day or the close of every day, right? It just serves as that reminder about what's going to drive you During the course of your day.

I love that. I love that. I'm gonna definitely actually just have the thought that I'm gonna probably make this, this, I have a document with my purpose out and I'm gonna try to simplify it and make it my background on my laptop that I open up and see every morning.

There you go. Great. I love that.

Yeah. So yeah, one final question. If our listeners/viewers could change one thing today, or take one action step to change for changing their negative mindset, what should they do?

Wow.

Aside from reading your book. Okay. Because that's, that's definitely one they gotta do.

One thing to change their negative mindset. Okay. Here it is. Change how you talk to yourself. The researchers tell us that about 80% on average of our self-talk is negative. So my suggestion will be, and again, this is one of the things I do with the people that I coach is How are you talking to yourself? What are you saying? And if it's true that about 80% is negative, we need to change that.

Yeah, I love that. And that's something that I've worked on over the years as well. Well, Don, we, we really appreciate your time. I'll let, uh, Nick wrap us up.

We did it!

We did it! We did it, Don! For the members of our audience that are still on with us right now, for those that want to learn a little bit more about you, And your book and your business. We didn't even talk about what you do professionally outside of writing this amazing book. But for those that want to learn more, where should they go? What should they do?

Yeah. And let me summarize really what I do. I do this. I'm hired as a speaker and I have a couple of workshops and I'm a performance coach and I've got the best job in the world. So, people can go to my website at gopositive.com and that's Go Positive without the E. Gopositive.com, and you can purchase the book, of course, uh, Positive Mind Shift. Probably the best place to go is Amazon. And you can reach out to me, you can ask me questions. One of my favorite things, and this is part of the reason I do what I do, people could send me an email and just ask a question. In fact, I even have my email in the book. You can reach me at don@gopositive.com. Again, Go Positive without the E.

All right. We'll have, we'll definitely put that in the show notes so everybody can click to the website and your email. All right. Well, that's a wrap. Thank you so much for coming on today's show and I look forward to our next conversation.

And I thank you guys. Have a great day.

That is a wrap. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of Book Thinkers, Life-Changing Books. It would mean the world to us if you could write a review and share this episode with a few of your friends. I mean, these books truly have the power to change people's lives, and by reviewing or sharing our podcast, you're helping us make an impact. If you have any recommendations for future guests or any constructive feedback for us on how we can improve our show, please feel free to submit a form on our website, www.bookthinkers.com, or send us a direct message on Instagram @bookthinkers. With that, I am signing off, and I hope you have a wonderful day. Don't forget, go read something.