Critical Chance

Category: Perspective

  • October Updates – Why Happiness at Google?

    These past few weeks, I’ve been traveling across the country to present my talk, “The Happy Key To Success,” to teams across Google. I was invited to offsites in Atlanta, Boulder, and Los Angeles.

    But wait, why talk about happiness at Google?

    One thing we fail to understand is that our external world does not necessarily correlate to how we feel inside. Only 10% of your happiness is predicted by external things like you drive a nice car, or you work at Google. Whereas 90% of your happiness is predicted by your perception and how you view the world – something I was fortunate to learn from Shawn Achor +8 years ago.

    Important points:

    1. Happiness leads to success, not the other way around
    2. Your perception, quite literally, shapes your reality
    3. Our attitudes and choices impact those around us

    I feel lucky to have the opportunity to bring these ideas to the forefront. Huge thanks to all of the organizers who invited me to speak, and the attendees who were open to these ideas. People who work at Google are already very smart and talented, and I get excited when I think about how much more they can achieve with positive psychology.

    It’s the small things that we choose to focus on, that shape us into who we become.

    If we can just slightly change your perception, we can dramatically influence your happiness, and create a real revolution.

    Now get going!

    If you’re interested in having Alex speak at your company, you can express interest here.

  • 2018: Year in Review

    2018: Year in Review

    Happy New Year!

    How’s that resolution going? 

    The most common mistake that people make when setting their goals is either (1) they try to change too much at once or (2) they emphasize results instead of consistency. If you want to nail your resolution, hone in on one goal and focus on showing up everyday. Learn more on forming better habits here. 

    As we enter 2019, I’ve done some reflecting. I present to you, Critical-Chance’s year in review:

    In February ’18, I launched the website.

    By the numbers (2018):
    Total Pageviews: 3,563 
    
Video Views: 290
    
Newsletter Subscribers: 144
    Top Articles: 

    Relationships: A Simple Way to Stand Out – most unique readers

    • We perceive that we’re more connected than ever, however that’s only partially true
    • Social Media is decreasing our meaningful engagement with family, friends and co-workers
    • Enclosed are simple ways to buck the trend, which will make you stand out among peers

    Delayed… Gratification – most shared on social

    • Technology is shifting our understanding of time, which is making it harder than ever to delay gratification
    • Our greatest aspirations are set on long time horizons, and with today’s distractions, it’s difficult to produce something meaningful
    • Consider your goals as they relate to delaying gratification – RDT

    Friendship Diagrams: Part 1– longest average time on page 

    • Ever wonder, “what do my friendships actually look like?”
    • We use math, and witty cartoons to describe the nuances of our relationships

    Last year I read 20 books (+60% YOY). I attribute the increase to my growing travel schedule and the Amazon Kindle. Whenever I find myself mindlessly surfing social media, I whip out this bad boy and read information I’ve self-selected. It’s great, and I strongly recommend trying it if you haven’t. Sorry memes, you no longer receive all of my attention.

    my three favorite books (abstracts below):

    The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt

    • Parents have begun to over-shield their kids from harm. This has taught the most recent generation (Gen Z) to fear setbacks and ideology that goes against their personal beliefs. This is contrary to previous generations, “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” tradition. Greg and Jon discuss how this mentality has flipped the way our academic institutions operate, and how it’s (likely) causing changes in the way we treat each other online and the rate of teen depression. 

    Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked by Adam Alter

    • We are addicted to our technology; half of us would rather suffer a broken bone than a broken phone. Adam investigates the rise of our addiction, and explains why so many of today’s products are irresistible. Armed with the right knowledge and online tools, we can begin to leverage our phones to provide us more benefit than harm. 

    Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds by David Goggins

    • David Goggins went from an overweight, depressed kid to one of the toughest (physically and mentally) people in the world. Navy Seal Hell Week (3x), 100 mile marathon (18x) and Heart Surgery (2x), there isn’t an obstacle Goggins can’t overcome. Through his journey he learns that the most important voice is the one inside your own head. He’s evidence that when you embrace discomfort, you can achieve anything. 

    As Aristotle once said, “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” Part of my mission with Critical-Chance is to learn and evolve. I love finding unique ideas and viewpoints I haven’t heard of before. This is a deliberate focus of mine, because without entertaining new or opposing ideas, you’ll eventually plateau as a thinker.

    three ideas I learned and entertained in 2018: 

    Success comes down to compounding

    • Everyone has heard of compounding interest in the context of money, but few consider how it reigns true across other domains in your life such as knowledge
    • Success is played at the margins (incremental improvement), are you getting 1% better everyday or 1% worse?
    • More here 

    Setbacks are your competitive advantage

    • Failure shows us how badly we want something, it gives us the opportunity to rise to the challenge
    • When we overcome these setbacks, we become stronger (humans are anti-fragile)
    • “The ticket to victory often comes down to bringing your very best when you feel your worst.” -David Goggins 
    • More here

    Distraction is Enemy #1 of meaningful work

    • Time and attention will always be your most valuable resources, and unfortunately, 21st century business models rely on stealing these from you
    • Sometimes success is simply not getting distracted, and as society keeps relying on technology, this will become more and more true
    • New article coming soon =)

    And finally, thank you. Thanks for the kind encouragement and detailed feedback. If you’ve subscribed to the newsletter, attended a lecture or even just read a single sentence, I appreciate your gift of attention and time. I’m excited to keep learning this year. As the curiosity train keeps trekking forward, thanks for reserving a seat on board.

    Wishing you the best in 2019,

    Alex

  • Friendship Diagrams – Part 1

    Friendship Diagrams – Part 1

    Ah, Friends.

    Each buddy is unique but have you ever considered the context of your relationships? Or their wider connection to the universe?

    This month, we uncover friendship diagrams (FDs for short); A way to translate your connections onto paper using math and social science. 

    Let’s begin!

    Meet Brent and Ace.

    Each would independently call the other a “best friend.”

    Translated into a Friendship Diagram…

    This visual has four components.

    (1) Arrows show consensus

    For Brent and Ace, it’s a two way street; they each agree a friendship exists between them.

    While subtle, it’s an important distinction because not all friendships go both ways. In fact, many do not.

    Meet Dirk.

    Dirk is kind of a jerk, so nobody really likes him. Sure, you’ll be respectful when he’s around, but you don’t actually want to hang out with the guy.

    …

    Dirk thinks everyone is his friend, but everyone else thinks differently. When we view his FD, Dirk has arrows going out, but sadly, none returning.

    This is a crappy realization, but everyone knows a Dirk. In fact, at one point or another, we’ve likely found ourselves in our own Dirk-like scenario. While this is unavoidable, it could be worse.

    Meet Steven Glansberg.

    Video Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZjH4wnzwk4

    A noble mission: include the Steven Glansbergs and the Dirks.

    (2) Proximity shows depth

    Since Brent and Ace are best friends, it only makes sense that their proximity is close, but distance explains much more. How much do they know about each other? How often do they interact? Do they have similar social circles?

    Bear with me, but the distance can be captured by an equation.

    D = Distance on the Friendship Diagram

    Qt = Quality Time spent together (life experiences and adventure)

    t = Raw Time spent together (idle time and proximity)

    r = Recency (how often you speak / last time you interacted)

    The higher the score (D), the stronger your connection is, and the closer you sit on the diagram.

    The purple bit of the statement describes our time.  

    Quality Time (Qt): When friends define how close they feel, it doesn’t have to do with their physical proximity. Instead, it’s described by how well two people know each other and the experiences they’ve shared together. For example, you may have a childhood friend whom you rarely speak with, yet you’ve grown up together. While your interactions are sparse, you’ve built a serious bond through the events that have shaped you, That’s Quality Time (Qt).

    Time (t): In the same vein, there are those we spend time being around, but we’re not actively deepening relationships with. Think of the co-worker everyone dislikes, your child’s school teacher, even that crazy guy on the Subway. Time still counts towards something, but, when it’s idle or non-bond building, it pushes us away. That’s why Idle Time (t) sits in the denominator of the the equation. If raw time increases without any bond building, we’re slowly drifting apart.

    We want to strive for the highest proportion of quality time together, because idle time eventually erodes our relationships. Consider your friendships; has your time together been quality or idle? When’s the last time you deeply interacted with your friends?

    Recency (r): Just because you’ve built a strong connection, doesn’t mean you don’t need to maintain it. Keeping tabs on your buddies is not just additive but multiplicative. When we plan a fun night with friends, we tend to think of those we’ve interacted with most recently. And, if you’re out of the picture for a while, you can drop out of a friend’s immediate social channel quickly. This is why recency feels as if it’s on an exponential curve, but it’s not (see above). The truth is that you just need to take initiative. When we proactively reach out, we resume our closer proximity… just don’t wait too long.

    Have you been missing in action lately? Check out this post  on how to deepen relationships in the 21st century. (Hint: While it may feel hard, it’s easier than ever to stand out).

    If you break down the math you’ll find that Quality Time (Qt) and Recency (r) are the biggest drivers of Distance. Meaning that the fast lane to building a friendship is to spend time purposely with one another on a more frequent basis. There could be an entire post written on this subject, but to keep it simple: discover shared interests, make plans, and show up. 

    Cool, we’ve learned distance! Now grab your astronomy boots, because we’re going planetary next.

    (3) Mass shows power

    Mass is your weight after you strip away gravity (aka: the force holding us down on Earth).

    But the coolest part about Mass is that it shows us how different bodies interact [1]. The greater a planet’s mass, the more it pulls in other objects around it. Take the Sun and the Earth. It’s estimated that you could fit 1.3 million Earths inside the Sun.

    The Sun is 333,000 times more massive than the Earth. Because it’s so large, there’s an invisible force pulling all the planets in our solar system towards the Sun at all times. This is why the Earth rotates around the Sun and not vice-versa (sorry Aristotle!).

    I posit that our friendships experience the same phenomenons; Friendship Diagrams are like mini-maps of our own universe.

    First off, we can denote each person’s Mass; illustrating the ability of an individual to pull others inward, and keep us together. Just like the periodic table of elements, there is a wide range of Mass out there, or, in this case, “pulling in strength.”

    But there’s a second quality of Mass; the more massive an object, the harder it is change its state of motion [2]. In the case of FD’s, motion isn’t physical, but is a person’s opinions, attitudes, feelings, and decisions to be friends. 

    Take Grace, as an example.

    …

    …

    …

    Hangout with Grace once, no big deal. But make it a weekly occurrence, and she’ll suck you right in. Before you know it, you can’t escape Grace; she’s everywhere you go, socializing more than breathing, hanging out with your friends.

    Want to go bowling? Oh, hey Grace…

    Trying to see Avengers alone? 

    Soon, you can’t make plans, because Grace has already made them for you.

    Grace is the blackhole of friends.

    And there are two things we know about Black Holes.

    #1. The speed of sucking you in accelerates as objects get closer towards the center.

    #2. Once you pass “the point of no return” (Schwarzschild radius), you can never escape [3].

    Together, this forms a massive Grace.

    There are positive versions of this phenomenon, but the main point is to be careful. Our social circles exhibit an abundance of forces, and you can drift far without realizing it.

    Have you wandered off course?

    (4) Color shows uniqueness

    Lastly, while Brent and Ace have similar interests, they are unique people. To illustrate their differences, they are distinct colors.

    When we talk about color in the friendship diagram we mean informational differences, like their education, experiences, values, and goals.

      1. Brenton grew up in the South, he’s from a rural town, and studied Writing in college.
    1. Ace grew up in the North, he’s from an urban town, and studied Business in college.

    Small differences, large shifts in viewpoint.

    This attribute is powerful, and we want to aim for a colorful Friendship Diagram of our own. 

    Adam Grant has a good explanation of why diverse backgrounds and viewpoints matter:

    “You want teams that are cognitively diverse and psychologically safe. A variety of thinking styles—coupled with the freedom to take risks without being punished—enables groups to generate, test, and implement creative ideas. It’s important that our diagrams grow diversely, and we give them the freedom to fail.”

    Think about the internet, would you agree that (when used properly) it can elevate performance? There are a variety of reasons why that may be so, but the internet provides an unfathomable number of data points (many of them being different). While these articles, opinions, and interests may not be relevant or even true, they create new pathways of thought that challenge our decisions. Ultimately, we may only use a small percentage of the data, but having access to unique opinions gives way to the best outcomes – it fights against the echo-chambers of our own selves. Here’s a study from Stanford further explaining this concept.

    Of course, it’s easier to relate to colors that are similar ie: those who have similar backgrounds or experiences. However, we must push ourselves to create relationships with those less like us as too. Performance outcomes are elevated when we increase diversity [2]. And of course, digging deeper we actually find that we are more alike than different.

    “Human beings by nature want happiness… everyone tries to achieve [it]. In this way, [we] are the same, whether rich or poor, education or uneducated, Easterner or Westerner, believer or non-believer, and within believers whether Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Muslim and so on. Basically from the viewpoint of real human value we are all the same.”

    -Dalai Lama

    We’re all some sort of dot on the friendship diagram, whether our dots are big, small, blue, or green.

    < END of Part 1 >

    Coming up next, our FD over time and more.

    Which attributes do you relate to most?

    Post your comments below.

  • Relationships: A Simple Way to Stand Out

    Written by David Tillem on May 17th, 2018

10 minute read

    Relationships: A Simple Way to Stand Out

     

    We are in a period of time where people all over the world PERCEIVE that they are the most connected they have ever been.

     

    This is only partially true.  

     

    Facebook lets you see that your old roommate from college just had a baby, but did you write them a letter to congratulate them? Did you even send a text? Social media gives us the feeling that we are connected but, when it’s not backed by actions, it’s really just smoke and mirrors.  Dating apps are another great example, they can give us the same feeling.  Maybe you are going out on lots of dates, but are you really making connections?

     

     

    Social Media gives us an excuse to not reach out. You saw it on Instagram and double tapped it for the heart. So while we may be staying up to date on important moments, we’re not deepening our relationships.

     

     

    Relationships ebb and flow. I get it. But if you’re like me, you have friends, acquaintances, colleagues, sports team mates, relatives, etc. in your life that you have at one point been close with but eventually drifted apart.

     

    Why is that?

     

    You moved to different cities, you graduated, you changed teams, you got in a fight… whatever the reason, they moved on and you moved on. Were those people important to you? Valuable to your network? Did they make you laugh? Give you confidence? Push you to be better? How did you let these relationships slip away you ask yourself?

     

    They may be gone for now, but not gone for good. In modern terms, these relationships are just a few clicks away from being rekindled.

     

    Yes, the answer is that simple.

     

    What are we waiting for?

     

    Making a phone call isn’t hard. Clearly, it’s something else that is stopping us from reaching out to that old friend. This is where the perception pivot comes into play (to read more about perception pivots click here).

     

    Our mind immediately goes to the worst case scenario. Essentially, the same reason you don’t walk up to the pretty girl at the bar is a different version of the same reason you don’t just call a friend you haven’t spoken to in 5 years out of the blue. Rejection.

     

    But, the truth is, people are ALWAYS happy to hear from you. Always. What’s more flattering than getting a call from someone you haven’t heard from in a while? Who doesn’t love to be called and asked for career advice? Or catch up about old college memories?

     

    Imagine the scenario where your old co worker from your last firm calls you and you chat for 30 minutes and catch up. You go home, tell your significant other about it. Do you say, “ugh, you’ll never believe it, some guy that I worked with years ago called and talked my ear off, couldn’t get him off the phone. What a waste of time.”

     

    OR do you think it goes more like, “Honey, I had a guy that I used to work with reach out. Really great to catch up with him. Turns out he’s working at a competitor of one of my clients. So awesome to hear from him – might even get some business out of it!”

     

    Likely the conversation would be somewhere in between those two scenarios, but you get the point.

     

    Beyond the benefits of networking and generally being “in the know”, why should you put yourself intentionally in seemingly tough and awkward positions?

     

    Robert Waldinger,  a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School recently concluded one of the world’s longest studies of adult life. A key conclusion gleans why relationships are so critical.

     

    Those who kept warm relationships lived longer and happier, and the loners often died earlier. Loneliness kills and on long time horizons, it’s as powerful as smoking or alcoholism.” **

     

     

    We can’t all live in the same place, stay at the same job, have the same interests forever but, if you care about a relationship, don’t let too much time go between interactions. Friendships don’t take a long time to start fizzling out.

     

    I know I am over simplifying it. If it was that easy, everyone would do it, right? Take some baby steps.

     

    Make note of birthdays on your list of people you want to catch up with and, on that day, shoot them a text or give them a call. Talk about an easy in.

     

    Keep up with someone’s LinkedIn updates. A congratulatory call when an old friend gets a promotion is a normal and positive reason to call someone… but NO ONE EVER DOES IT. You will stand out amongst your peers, if you do these things.

    A Simple Framework

     

    1. Make a list

    • People you haven’t spoken to in a while that you that you care about

    2. Tackle the list one by one

    • Go down the list and just start calling people (texting counts, but use it as a tool to set something up)
    • ie: Text someone to organize a time to talk or meet for a coffee

    Download our simple spreadsheet here.

     

    So you might ask yourself, why don’t people do it? I think there are a couple of reasons.

     

    Number one, inertia/laziness/selfishness.

     

    Get over it. Just reach out. Once you do it the first time, and you realize how fulfilling it is, you will want to do it over and over again. Not only will it feel good, but it helps ensure the network you worked so hard at creating remain healthy and strong.

     

    You can feed your selfish side by remembering that staying in touch with smart and successful people will likely help you down the road. Not only that, people will start to look to you as the person that knows what everyone is up to.

     

    It starts out hard with that first awkward conversation but quickly becomes easier and more natural.

     

    It’s an upward spiral effect, and it’s all driven by you taking action.

     

     

    Why else do people not do it?

     

    Fear.

     

    What would I say? We haven’t spoke in so long… again, this is a bogus excuse.  You will likely be the only person calling them out of the blue to catch up and they will be excited that you called.

     

    The usual, “How’s work?”, “How are things?”, “Girlfriend?”, “Boyfriend?”, “Where are you living?” Those types of questions are OK. Remember, you haven’t spoken in a while. Even if the conversation never gets past those surface level topics, it was still worth having. If this is someone you care to maintain a relationship with, it IS worth doing. The next call will be easier.

     

    When I ask people why they don’t keep in touch with their high school friends, their college friends, their old co workers, the answer is almost always, “I don’t know… but I really should“.  

     

    Let’s change that.

     

    I challenge you to go out and make one phone call a week to a friend, old colleague, aunt or uncle that you haven’t kept up with and see how he or she is doing. Make a physical list of people, and keep it wherever you may be most inclined to make these calls.

     

    For me, when I lived in NYC, I wouldn’t take the bus or train to and from work. I walked the thirty minutes, and every day on my way home, I called SOMEBODY.  My mom, old college friends, friends from my hometown etc. Sure, I find value in listening to podcasts and music when walking or driving around, but I have never gotten more out of listening to music than I have strengthening a relationship.

     

    This is the 21st century. We no longer need to write a letter and wait weeks for a response. There is really no good excuse for good relationships to shrivel up and disappear.

     

    Connections matter. A lot. Let’s treat them with the amount of importance they deserve. Make the call.

     

    *Special thanks to David Tillem for this guest post!

  • Perception pivots and why they matter

     

    Written on February 8th, 2018

12 minute read

    Perception pivots and why they matter

    You should always focus on valuable realities; a familiar statement I tell Googlers attending my happiness course.

    There are 11 billion pieces of information communicated to us every single second.

     

    Crazy, right? If you look around, there are 11 billion things your brain can focus on. What do you think your brain can actually process (per second)?

    Here is where the really optimistic people shine. Some will shout out, “one-thousand” or even “ten-thousand,” but the answer is actually 40 bits per second. You don’t have to be a math expert to know that 40 is a really, really small slice of 11 billion. That’s the equivalent of choosing 58 people on the entire planet!

    Whatever you focus on, is the reality that you live in; and everybody focuses on something different. This is pretty nuts, and what we’re finding is people are quite literally living in different realities. If you’re a Stranger Things fan, we’re having the same thought; the upside down is being played out in real time! Well, not quite that dramatic, but directionally it’s actually correct.

    There’s an important group of people, who we call, “Positive Geniuses.” They focus on the right pieces of information in their environment, leading them to faster solutions, higher levels of creativity, productivity… the list goes on. They’re using perception to their advantage.

    There are two specific ways you can train your mind to become more like a “Positive Genius,” and I decided to try them out myself for 30 days.

    Daily Gratitudes – there’s a lot that you’re grateful for, so take the time to recognize it

    • Write down 3 things you’re grateful for each day, it can be really abstract or really simple
    • IE: Good music, cute puppies, and the opportunity to learn something new everyday
    • This rewires your brain to look for the positive things in your environment (the better 40 bits)

    Reframing Challenges – multiple realities exist and we need to select the most valuable reality

    • Choose something you’re struggling with and write down three ways you currently view the task; then, contrast it by writing down three alternate yet equally true ways to see that same problem
    • IE: I have a lot of work to catch up on, but I also have a lot of responsibility and control in my job
    • This forces you to view situations in multiple ways and, by doing so, you recognize new factors in your environment you typically miss (a different 40 bits)

    Would I start seeing the positive details in my environment? Could I be missing the most important 40 bits? Will it have any measurable impact on my performance at work or at home?

    The second exercise was most fascinating to me, and it flows into something I dub the “Perception Pivot.” We’ve all experienced it before – you learn a small fact about a situation and suddenly your option or outlook does a 180. IE: You thought the cashier was a terrible person, but suddenly you couldn’t have more compassion for them. Here’s an example that underscores this incredibly well, and it comes from my friend, Sean. At the time, he was a manager of an Apple Store.

    One Thursday, it was busier than normal and the wait was long. One woman in the iPhone repair queue was getting extremely agitated at the staff. She began acting out and screaming at employees. The other customers in line were looking at her like she was a lunatic, they tried their best to just ignore her. Eventually, she demanded a manager and Sean did his best to truly understand the situation by asking her a series of questions. After a few minutes, he found out something critical; she was a chemotherapy patient and used some of the applications on her iPhone to schedule her medical treatments. The longer she waited for her phone to be fixed, the more treatment appointments she was missing.

    I think anyone in that line, if they had known this fact, would have acted differently. Even you, feel completely different about her behavior at this point, right?

    Boom. Perception pivot.

    Back to my research, the short answer is yes; I began to have a more positive outlook everyday, I felt more satisfied at work and even found stronger meaning in my social circles with friends and family. It felt as though the exercises were working, I was certainly more grateful and saw challenges with new vantage points. But my conclusion was only anecdotal; I needed something else to show the exercise was working. And that’s when something incredible happened.

    I was meeting a friend after work who lived in downtown Ann Arbor. The building’s tenant base was predominantly graduate students and newly working 20-somethings. As I came through the lobby, I saw an older woman stacking large moving boxes; there must have been at least 4 of them, each full with belongings. She was having trouble moving them alone, and each lobby-goer passed by as if she wasn’t there.

    It was so strange. I mean, if you ran an experiment showing various situations and asked, “what doesn’t fit?” I think 10/10 test subjects would have chosen this woman. Nothing lined up, she was middle-aged, not recently graduated; moving out, not moving in; visibly upset and unhappy.

    In real life, you’re not forced to pick out things that don’t fit. In fact, we’re usually running on autopilot, deep inside our heads, there’s a lot we miss. Everyone assumes the script is always the same, but many times it’s not. Ah-ha! My perception exercise was working.

    Instead of passing her, my eyes met hers and I just began moving boxes. We didn’t say anything, I just started helping. Suddenly her individual operation evolved into a circuit formation. 10 additional boxes were transported from the lobby, to the parking lot, to the trunk of an SUV. At the car, there were two adults waiting, both in a saddened mood. After we packed the last box away, I answered their thank-yous and walked back towards the building.

    I had almost reached the entrance when I heard, “Wait a minute!” …she had followed me back inside. As I turned around, I noticed eyes held back tears. “That was really kind of you.” she said. “The two parents at the car just found out that their daughter had passed away. It was sudden. I knew her well because I am a professor at the University and she was one of my students, a great person. What you did means so much, it’s hard for me to describe. Getting help from from people in the community has been so important.”

    Boom, perception pivot.

    You should always push yourself to see how situations may be different.

    Angry at the driver who cut you off?

    • Maybe he’s driving his wife to the hospital, she’s in labor with their first-born.

    An employee comes to work late each day of the week

    • Maybe she’s taking care of an ailing parent, hasn’t been home earlier than 11pm each night

    See a stranger moving out of your apartment building?

    • Maybe she’s helping a friend who needs it more than you can imagine

    We tend to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt, but never offer others that same chance. It leads us to miss what’s going on right in front of us because we’re stuck in our own heads. We need to constantly challenge our perceptions, everyday, in every way.

    I challenge you to pick up a positive habit this week and view your reality differently. When we become Positive Geniuses, we don’t just elevate ourselves, but instead, we lift everyone up.

    Perspective pivots matter because they help us reach our greatest potential.