0:15

Pushkin. A

0:20

lot I want to talk to you about tonight is

0:23

why positive thinkers get positive

0:25

results, and

0:27

they do too, that's for sure. Pastor

0:31

Norman Vincent Peale officiated Donald

0:33

Trump's first marriage, but that's

0:35

not his biggest claim to fame. Take

0:38

charge of your thoughts. You

0:40

can do what your will. Peel

0:43

is famous for his nineteen fifty two books

0:46

The Power of Positive Thinking. Peel

0:48

was one of the first to argue for the power

0:50

of positive thought, the idea that

0:52

if you get rid of your negativity and crush

0:55

all your worries about the obstacles in your path,

0:57

then things will work out just the way you hope

0:59

they would. The concept was simple and

1:02

really appealing. Simply visualize

1:04

a great job or the perfect marriage, and it'll

1:06

happen. You think positively

1:09

in order to send out positive emanations

1:12

to reproduce themselves

1:15

in kind in positive

1:17

results. But Peele says,

1:20

if you think about the pitfalls you could meet along

1:22

the way, then they'll appear. You'll

1:24

be punished for your pessimism. You

1:26

can destroy yourself

1:31

or you can create yourself by

1:33

the manner and quality

1:36

of your thoughts. Peele's

1:38

idea that the path to happiness was in our heads

1:41

took a troubled postwar American public

1:43

by storm. The Power of

1:45

Positive Thinking remained on the best seller

1:47

list for one hundred and eighty six weeks

1:50

and was translated into fifteen different

1:52

languages. And on this basis

1:55

and by this method, positive

1:57

thinkers always

2:00

get positive results.

2:09

But the notion that negative thinking could bring you down

2:11

didn't end in the nineteen fifties. That

2:14

same punished for pessimism idea continues

2:17

in the rhetoric of self help gurus. Today.

2:20

Everything we think and feel is creating

2:22

our future, so wrote Rhnda

2:24

Burne in her two thousand and six book The

2:27

Secret. She argued that the power

2:29

of positive thought was a basic

2:31

physical law of the universe. Her

2:34

theory became a favorite subject on daytime

2:36

talk shows and most importantly,

2:39

won the Oprah Seal of approval. All

2:41

of my guests today say they have uncovered

2:43

the secret to bringing love, to

2:46

bringing happiness, even wealth into

2:48

anybody's life. The secret is the

2:50

law of attraction. It means that

2:52

the energy you put out into the world is

2:54

always going to be coming back to you.

2:57

Think good things, and good things will come drawn

3:00

to you like a magnet. But as

3:02

Burne warned. If you're worried or in

3:04

fear, then you're bringing more of that into

3:06

your life too, Even

3:10

if you don't fully subscribe to the law of attraction.

3:12

I bet you agree that thinking positively is

3:15

probably a good thing. Human thought

3:17

may not work like a magnet, but a little

3:19

optimism is presumably still useful

3:21

for meeting our goals. And it seems

3:23

obvious that too much negative thinking could

3:25

bring us down. But is that really the case.

3:28

Does envisioning a positive future actually

3:31

help it come about? And is it helping our

3:33

happiness in the way we think

3:40

our minds are constantly telling us what to do

3:42

to be happy. But what if our minds

3:44

are wrong? What if our minds are lying

3:47

to us, leading us away from what

3:49

will really make us happy? The

3:51

good dues is that understanding the science

3:53

of the mind can point us all back in

3:55

the right direction. You're

3:57

listening to the Happiness Lab with doctor

3:59

Laurie Santois his

4:05

world records in swimming.

4:07

I think it's forty eight, keep losing track

4:10

of it. It's forty something world records.

4:12

I think the next postest person is twenty something.

4:15

You know he's just obliterated the record

4:18

books. This is Bob Bowman, the

4:20

man who coached swimmer Michael Phelps to twenty

4:22

three Olympic gold medals. Twenty

4:25

freaking three. I think the next

4:27

closest person is nine, and

4:30

that's Mark Spitz, right, and Lassie

4:33

Varon and Carl Lewis. Bob

4:35

was the first person to spot Michael's immense

4:37

potential. He knew it the instant

4:40

the fifth grader entered the water his Baltimore

4:42

Swim club, Michael stood out.

4:44

He was heading shoulders above the rest of

4:46

the group. Then I went home and I could not sleep

4:48

that night because I was like, Wow, this kid

4:51

is something, and I better step up

4:53

my game because he's way ahead of me right now.

4:55

As the youngest pupil at bobs swimming practice,

4:58

eleven year old Michael would be placed at the back of

5:00

the group, behind boys three and four

5:02

years older than him as everyone set

5:04

off for their daily laps. And I remember

5:06

by the end of it, he had worked his

5:08

way last to first and was

5:10

swimming times that no eleven year old and swimming

5:13

practice, And the first thing I

5:15

remember doing was like, don't act

5:17

like you're excited, just act like it's normal. I was

5:19

like, Okay, nice job. See tomorrow. Even

5:21

in those first practice sessions, Bob

5:24

could see that Michael was a very raw talent.

5:26

What I saw was someone who had rather

5:28

undisciplined strokes, so he wasn't

5:31

very efficient. He just used a lot of energy. He

5:33

had an incredible mental capacity

5:36

to want to compete, to

5:38

give his best effort when it

5:40

was needed, but in practice he

5:43

was very sloppy and sometimes he wouldn't pay attention

5:45

to things. Michael was particularly

5:47

resistant to altering his front crawl rhythm

5:49

to adopt the so called six beat kick,

5:52

which means you're going to take six kicks for

5:54

every two arm strokes. This

5:56

is a critical thing. Michael only took two,

5:59

so he just moved his arms like a madman

6:01

and didn't kick at all, and

6:04

doing that, he was the fastest eleven year old

6:06

in America. Nevertheless, Bob

6:08

wanted to fix this stroke problem, but it

6:10

meant engaging the young Phelps in a battle

6:12

of wills. If Michael stuck to the six

6:15

beat kick, all was well. But

6:17

if he fell back into his bad habit, he

6:19

got pulled out of the pool. So the first

6:21

practice he made it about five minutes

6:23

before he didn't do it, and I kicked him out

6:25

of practice next

6:27

day about twenty minutes,

6:30

kicked out the next day about

6:33

forty made it an hour on

6:35

about the fourth day, but after

6:37

that he never had to go back, right.

6:39

That's what made Michael Michael Phels. But

6:42

Michael's physical training could only take him

6:44

so far. To get to the next level,

6:47

Bob had to introduce his pupil to mental

6:49

training. Oh, you have to

6:51

have the software and the hardware, right. Nobody

6:55

just gets a Mac with nothing on it. Yeah,

6:58

so you have to work on the software too, and

7:00

you have to constantly be upgrading it. And

7:03

that's where I think the mental training comes in. It

7:05

just makes everything you do more meaningful.

7:08

When Bob talks about mental training, he

7:10

sounds a little like a positive thinking guru.

7:12

One thing you need to have is what I call your

7:15

dream goal, your vision, right, And

7:17

I said, you know, Michael, what's your dream goal? Think

7:19

about it? And he would

7:21

always say swim in the Olympics. But

7:23

Michael didn't just want Olympic glory. He

7:26

developed a list of goals for his career, a

7:28

list of goals for the year, and even

7:30

goals for his next training session. And I had

7:32

him put it on his refrigerator because that's

7:35

where he went most of the time. Right, he'd see it one hundred

7:37

times a day. He was eating NonStop. At

7:39

this time, Michael had to focus on meeting

7:41

all these goals during swim practice, which

7:43

took a lot of hard work. You know, one

7:45

of the things that by swimmers hate hearing

7:47

me say is, you know it takes

7:50

what it takes. You

7:52

can't you don't get to make up what it takes. This is what

7:54

it takes. So you can either do it or not, but

7:56

realize this is what it's going to take. Bob

7:59

also taught Michael a very advanced form

8:01

of mental training, the art of

8:03

visualization. Competing for a gold

8:06

medal. In his mind, let's see

8:08

yourself swimming the race

8:11

and the time that you want to swim. See

8:14

yourself swimming at the tempo. You know, make

8:16

it as vivid as you can smell the chlorine.

8:18

You know what a lot of these pools are going to be like, So

8:20

you know, make sure that your mental pictures.

8:23

It's like a movie, but it's very detail.

8:26

And he would start doing that. Bob's

8:30

visualization technique is based on the

8:32

latest science of what researchers call mental

8:34

practice. A form of practice

8:36

that you do not in the physical world, but

8:39

inside your head. It turns out

8:41

that's simply imagining a behavior, say

8:43

swimming an Olympic race or practicing the violin,

8:46

can train your mind in some of the same ways as

8:48

hopping into a real pool or picking up

8:50

an actual instrument. Mental

8:52

practice works because our minds aren't all that

8:54

great at telling the difference between something

8:56

that's really happening to us and something

8:59

we just imagined. Envisioning

9:01

an activity vividly, it turns out, recruits

9:04

the same brain circuits as experiencing

9:06

that event in real life, which

9:08

means minds can learn from imagined

9:10

events in a lot of the same ways as

9:12

we learn from real events. Scientists

9:15

have done some clever experiments to show the power

9:17

of mental simulation to influence

9:19

what we learn in the real world. The

9:21

psychologist carry Morwdge in his colleagues wanted

9:24

to see if simply imagining eating lots of

9:26

bad food can have the same consequences

9:28

as actually eating a lot of bad food. Morwig

9:31

had his subjects imagine one of two activities,

9:34

either putting thirty quarters into a laundry

9:36

machine slowly, one by one, or

9:38

eating thirty pieces of Eminem's candy slowly,

9:41

one by one. Afterwards, he

9:43

made both groups of subjects sit in a room with

9:45

a real candy dish.

9:47

Did simulating eating the M and ms affect

9:50

how many real Eminem's people ate? Morwig

9:53

found that people who imagined eating M and m's

9:55

ate about half as many as people who imagine

9:58

popping quarters. Mentally, eating

10:00

of food feel so much like you're actually

10:02

doing it that you eat less chocolate in

10:04

real life. Merely imagining

10:07

causes enough of the same cues and zoological

10:09

signals that we can learn from a behavior

10:11

we just saw inside our heads. Mental

10:15

practice, it turns out, can also make

10:17

perfect, or in the case of Michael

10:19

Phelps, more than perfect. We

10:21

used to call it the movie right like back then there

10:23

wasn't you know, digital, We

10:25

had VHS tapes, so

10:28

I would carry it into practice. So let's

10:30

say we were doing a series and practice

10:32

where Michael was swimming one hundred meters

10:35

freestop. I would say, put

10:38

in the videotape and run

10:40

your rehearsal of your race right now, see the movie

10:42

right now as you're doing this last one hundred meters and

10:44

hit the time. Was the kind of thing Michael wasn't

10:46

envisioning his head always positive, like the

10:48

perfect race, everything goes perfectly well,

10:51

you know, I used to think it was until

10:53

after the Beijing Olympics. Yes,

10:56

the two thousand and eight Beijing Olympics. That

10:59

year, Michael was hoping to smash the record

11:01

in the two hundred meter butterfly final. It

11:04

was his best event and quite

11:06

frankly, he and I were both

11:08

hoping for a performance

11:10

that would last forever. That butterfly

11:13

final was definitely a race that fans would

11:15

remember, but not for the reasons Bob expected.

11:18

A real life disaster struck during that race,

11:21

one that challenged the tenets of positive thinking

11:23

right to the core. The

11:26

Happiness Lab will be back in a moment. Michael

11:39

Phelps was about to begin one of the biggest

11:42

races of his career, the two hundred

11:44

meter men's butterfly Olympic Final. Coach

11:47

Bob Bowman was poolside when the race

11:49

suddenly went wrong. After the dive,

11:52

he noticed in the first fifty meters that

11:54

his goggles are filling up with water, but

11:57

he knew he couldn't stop and take his goggles

12:00

off because that would be disqualification.

12:02

He would have broken stroke, so he was stuck

12:04

with the goggles and by the time he was halfway

12:06

through the race, he could not see anything.

12:08

Think about this for a second, your Michael

12:10

Phelps, You've trained for this moment your

12:13

entire life. You've been reminded

12:15

of how important the gold medal is every time

12:17

you went to the refrigerator. You've

12:19

played mental videotape after mental

12:21

videotape of the perfect race. But

12:23

when you dive into the pool, your goggles

12:25

fill with water in your swimming blind.

12:28

What did Michael do well?

12:31

Even though his coach didn't realize it, Michael

12:33

had a tape for that too. It turns

12:35

out Michael had gotten so bored

12:37

with all those think positive, perfect race

12:40

visualizations that he threw some not

12:42

so perfect mental simulations into the mix.

12:45

And I had no idea he was doing that.

12:47

He did that on his own. Very important.

12:49

The importance of this is clear when we cut back

12:52

to that butterfly race. How did Michael

12:54

deal with the tragedy of swimming blind? He

12:56

played back a mental movie. So what he

12:58

decided to do was revert back to

13:00

what he had seen and worked on so hard

13:03

mentally. And he's like, I hope at nineteen

13:05

strokes. I'm going to hit the wall. He did, and

13:07

then he made the last fifties. Okay, at

13:09

twenty, I really hope I'm going to get this done, and

13:13

he did. The result was a world record

13:15

gold medal, and if

13:18

you ever watched the video of it, Michael

13:20

takes off his throws off his cap and goggles

13:23

and he looks like somebody who got

13:25

last place, right, And

13:29

he went into this tantrum like he used to have.

13:31

What he was like twelve, you know, my goggles

13:33

filled up. I didn't know what to do. I just count

13:35

on my strokes. I could have gone

13:38

one fifty point five. I went one fifty two

13:40

flat. I'm like, uh, you know, we're kind

13:42

of in front of a few billion people right now, gold

13:44

medal, world record, let's just smile. And

13:48

he did. But that's a perfect example

13:50

of him taking what we had rehearsed

13:53

so many times and putting it

13:55

to practice under incredible pressure.

13:57

Right. And my first

14:00

thought about that is who does that? What kind of freak

14:02

is this? It does that? But when you can go

14:04

back and dissect how he got there, he

14:06

had been prepared for that for a very long time.

14:09

I saw an interview with him where he was asked what was it

14:11

like to swim blind? And I think he said,

14:13

just like I imagined it would exactly

14:16

exactly. Michael didn't

14:18

just visualize all the positive stuff, the

14:21

perfect race when everything went well. He

14:23

also simulated what it felt like to swim blind,

14:26

and so he swam perfectly in spite

14:28

of the awful situation, and in the

14:30

end he won the race, got the gold,

14:33

and even took the world record. Bob

14:36

Breckens. Things would have been very different if

14:38

Michael's visualizations had used purely positive

14:41

thinking. Your brain is a computer,

14:43

right, That's what I say, and

14:46

you're giving it input, right,

14:48

So you're giving it, on the one hand, the input

14:51

of the things that you want to do. On

14:53

the second part, you're rehearsing a

14:55

database of scenarios so

14:58

that you're ready for whatever comes up. If

15:01

you dive in and something doesn't go well,

15:03

you can immediately call on these other scenarios.

15:05

But if you haven't put those in your database,

15:08

you don't get to call on those. You have to consciously

15:10

start thinking about what to do. And we all

15:12

know that's not the best way to be in competition, right.

15:15

You want to shut your brain off and just let it automatically

15:17

happen. Michael

15:20

Phelps is a one in a million, maybe one

15:22

in a billion athlete, but science

15:24

suggests the strategy he used, focusing

15:26

his mental energy on the worst possible outcome

15:29

that nightmare scenario is one

15:31

that all of us can learn from.

15:33

Despite what shelves of self help books

15:35

say, it turns out that negative

15:37

thinking is really really helpful. In

15:40

fact, new research is beginning to show

15:43

that positive thinking focusing

15:45

only on the good outcomes, can be a recipe

15:47

for disaster. Or we find is

15:51

the more positive people

15:53

think about the future, actually the

15:55

less well they do in reaching

15:58

the positive future. I'm talking

16:00

with gabrielle Otingen, professor of psychology

16:02

at NYU, an author of a book entitled

16:05

Rethinking Positive Thinking. We need

16:07

to listen to all of the positive fantasies

16:10

and daydreams because they are an expression

16:12

of our needs, so we

16:14

know where to go. The only

16:17

problem is that these positive fantasies

16:19

and datreams accept our energy. They

16:22

are actually an impediment

16:24

to our actual successes.

16:27

Gabriel's work has documented lots of

16:29

cases were more positive thinking

16:31

leads to worst outcomes. The more

16:34

positively people enrolled

16:36

in a weight production program, fantasized

16:39

about their success in the program,

16:42

the fewer pounds they shed, or

16:44

the more positively university credits.

16:47

Fantasized about success

16:50

in transferring into the work

16:52

life, the fewer dollars they earned

16:55

two years later, the fewer job offers

16:57

they had gotten, and the fewer

16:59

job applications that had sent out. You

17:02

name the goal, and research shows that positive

17:05

thinking makes it less likely you'll reach

17:07

it. Those who fantasy about

17:09

starting a romantic relationship are more

17:11

likely to remain alone. People

17:13

who dream of an ideal future get

17:16

more depressed. Carefully imagine

17:18

getting good grades, and you risk flunking

17:20

the class. The downside

17:22

of positive thinking even extends to

17:24

physical outcomes. Elderly

17:26

individuals who dream of a full recovery after

17:29

their hip surgery are the ones who can

17:31

walk the fewest steps afterwards. Simply

17:34

put, positive thinking alone

17:36

doesn't work. I asked

17:38

Gabrielle if people are shocked when they hear about

17:41

this work, whether she gets a lot of pushback.

17:43

I do. But

17:46

on the other hand, people

17:48

are sometimes grateful because

17:51

this positive thinking alone did not work

17:53

for them, and they always think something

17:56

is wrong with them, and they feel kind

17:58

of relieved that they are

18:00

not alone, where they experience

18:03

that they can sink positive and positive

18:05

and positive and still things don't

18:07

rain from heaven. The coolest

18:09

thing about Gabrielle's work is that she's figured

18:12

out why positive fantasies are counterproductive,

18:15

the reason mentally simulating

18:17

our desired outcome makes us think we

18:19

already got there, like we just ate

18:21

all the eminem's we need in

18:24

their mind, they experience this desired

18:26

future already there,

18:28

and therefore they

18:30

relax. So it's almost like the simple act

18:33

of experiencing this positive fantasy,

18:35

it's like it confuses our mind. Our mind thinks

18:37

we've already gotten it, so we don't have to put energy in

18:39

exactly, you can measure

18:42

that by lord blood pressure, for

18:44

example. And so how do we actually

18:46

get the energy back we need to realize

18:48

our goals? Oddly enough, we

18:51

need a burst of negative thinking, just

18:53

like Michael Phelps visualizing swimming blind,

18:56

getting to our own personal goals requires

18:58

thinking about the obstacles that block our path.

19:01

It's kind of contraintuitive that

19:03

the obstacles in our way are actually

19:05

the trigger for overcoming them

19:08

and getting to implement all

19:10

positive fantasies. But it's exactly

19:12

what we've found. We need to

19:14

ground our positive fantasies in the gritty

19:17

reality. It's a strategy, Gabrielle

19:19

calls mental contrasting. Every

19:21

time we have a positive ambition for ourselves,

19:24

we need to directly contrast that goal

19:26

mentally with the reality of the situation,

19:29

the actual obstacles in our way. And

19:31

we need to simulate all of the obstacles,

19:34

both the physical ones like a

19:36

pair of goggles falling off, but also

19:38

the mental obstacles are dumb habits,

19:40

fears, and bad tendencies. That's

19:42

a critical point in mental contrasting.

19:45

Identify the inner obstacle

19:47

and get rid of the excuses. Then

19:49

we get the energy to overcome

19:52

these obstacles. Mental contrasting

19:55

is not just negative thinking or simply

19:57

ruminating about all the bad stuff. It's

19:59

making sure you factor the obstacles you're

20:01

facing into your plans. It's

20:04

contrasting the harsh realities of the world

20:06

with what you'd like to see in the future, and

20:09

that helps you determine whether your vision

20:11

is really achievable or worth

20:13

it. If the obstacle is

20:16

just too formidable or

20:19

too costly to overcome,

20:22

we can then say Okay,

20:25

I can let go without having

20:27

a bad conscience, and then

20:29

I am free to invest

20:31

my energy to more feasible

20:35

wishes. So it is a strategy

20:37

to set priorities and to

20:39

let go from wishes that is

20:42

simply not feasible or

20:44

too costly. Mental contrasting

20:47

can help us get our goals in line with what's

20:49

actually doable, what's really worth

20:51

our effort. But that doesn't mean

20:53

that mental contrasting causes you to give up

20:55

when the going gets tough. In fact,

20:57

this strategy can be essential for getting

20:59

through the toughest physical and mental

21:02

challenges a person can face. Check

21:04

check. This is Kristen back with Laurie Santo's

21:07

all right. Kristen is

21:09

a decorated veteran of one of the most elite

21:11

military forces, a unit

21:13

where even if you're lucky enough to try out,

21:16

the chances of you making the grade are tiny.

21:19

It's probably like seven percent. I think back

21:21

when I joined, it was like the

21:23

late eighties early nineties, and there was

21:25

really no publicity for the seal teams.

21:28

But it was a really crappy movie called

21:30

Navy Seals. And after I saw

21:32

that movie about the Navy Seals, I was like I'm gonna do that.

21:36

Nowadays, the Navy Seals are famous. They're

21:38

the unit that killed Osama bin Laden, and

21:41

their extreme training techniques made

21:43

great television. They're shouted at,

21:45

made to carry heavy logs, and thrown

21:47

into the freezing ocean with their hands tied.

21:50

And that's just the warm up for the real

21:52

challenge of joining the Seals. Hell

21:55

Week, you start training all

21:57

they're doing, defeating the heck outia. You're

21:59

gonna be awake for six days. You're

22:01

gonna be working out constantly for six days.

22:03

You're making you do, you know, a thousand sit

22:05

ups and hundreds and hundred of pushups, and you swim

22:08

for seven miles and you run four miles,

22:10

and it's just like a constant physical

22:12

abuse. And what they're trying

22:14

to do is they're trying to make you break. They're trying

22:16

to make your body break or your mind break, you know, one

22:19

or the other. The attrition rate for wannabe

22:21

Seals is insane. During Hell Week, recruit

22:24

after recruit just gives up. It's

22:26

even ritualized to drop

22:29

out. Recruits need to walk over to a brass

22:31

ship's bell, assuming they can even

22:33

walk, and ring it to signal

22:35

their surrender. But

22:37

part of what makes Kristen such an incredible

22:39

person is that she never hit that bell.

22:42

You never quit, you still keep going. And

22:44

so you're barely walking, but you're still going.

22:47

You know, you're doing fushups and you're

22:49

like your knees are on the ground and you're barely

22:51

moving. Well, you're still doing it. And

22:54

they kind of have to train you that hard physically

22:56

because that's what you're going to deal with physically

22:58

when you're actually in the job, right exactly. I mean

23:00

a physical is a huge part of it, but

23:02

I think the mental is bigger. Why

23:05

do the Seals make their recruits train so hard?

23:07

It's the old military adage, train

23:10

hard, fight easy. Having

23:12

survived Hell Week, Kristen had the confidence

23:15

that she could meet even the greatest mental

23:17

and physical challenges and still succeed.

23:20

But once becoming part of the Seal's proper

23:23

Kristen found that the unit doesn't just practice

23:25

in the real world. They also practice

23:27

in their heads. And this elite unit

23:30

takes the simulations Michael Phelps and Gabrielle

23:32

Otingen recommend to a whole new

23:34

level. So we've practice all the bad stuff

23:36

to make sure that when we do get there. We go, wow, this is easy.

23:39

I've already seen something like that, or I've

23:41

already been there, so that you're not quite as

23:43

shocked when you know

23:46

it really hits the fan. Just like

23:48

with Michael Phelps imagining a race, thinking

23:50

of every stroke, in every detail, down

23:52

to the smell of the chlorinated water, Kristen

23:55

would painstakingly plan every facet

23:57

of her missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

24:00

So we do sand tables interactually these

24:02

big tables with sand, and then we shaved

24:05

the sand into the terrain. And

24:08

so if it's a mountain over there, in a valley here,

24:10

and it's a stream here, we'll make it

24:12

as close as possible to what that train's gonna

24:14

look like. If we encounter enemy forces

24:16

here, then this is gonna be your heart

24:19

our way out. If this doesn't work, I want to

24:21

go back to here. We're constantly nitpicking

24:23

and constantly saying what if this happens, what if that

24:25

happens, And then we throw on all

24:27

the other ranches in the machine to make

24:29

things break down, and this happens. This happens. So

24:31

just like Michael Phelps, maybe a little little

24:34

harsher and word weird stuff happens.

24:36

So when you guys swim, it's like legit and with big

24:38

bags of mortars and things like that, one

24:41

hundred pounds and through the water for

24:43

seven miles. So I'm not sure how much of this is

24:45

classified, but I'm wondering, like, if this

24:47

kind of simulation was classified,

24:50

there was there like you know, or maybe in vague

24:52

terms, you can tell it was there one time where those simulations

24:55

really paid off. I mean, I could probably

24:57

tell you that every mission goes

24:59

that way. You'd never go as accord in

25:01

Flan. I didn't push Kristen

25:03

to tell me any more of her war stories. There's

25:06

a good reason her activities are classified. I

25:08

deployed thirteen times overseas.

25:11

I did a lot of work behind enemy

25:13

lines in deep I

25:16

was kind of sneaky, peeky, so I

25:18

did a lot of the stuff that you would do like

25:20

in other agencies. But Kristen's

25:22

most important role in the Seals was as a

25:24

planner, the person charged with predicting

25:27

the terrible obstacles. She's trained

25:29

more in the okay, what could go wrong next thought

25:31

than nearly anyone else in our nation. I

25:34

do it out of habit because I did it so many

25:36

times, and because it's a habit, Kristen

25:39

really gets that the kind of positive thinking

25:41

we're often told to adopt by well

25:43

meaning friends and self help grows, it

25:45

isn't all that helpful when the bullets start to fly.

25:48

We always plan on all the negatives

25:50

and all the bad stuff happen. Hope

25:52

is not a course of ashion. If all

25:54

you have is hope, then you don't have very much.

25:57

Kristen's training in the Seals made her the human

25:59

embodiment of mental contrasting, thinking

26:02

through all the possible obstacles before

26:04

they happen. But there's a second

26:06

reason I wanted to interview Kristen for this episode,

26:09

and that's because she's also faced

26:11

a different kind of battle, one that she began

26:13

speaking about publicly only after

26:16

leaving the Armed Services. Right

26:18

after I retired, I knew who I was,

26:20

you know, borned Christopher, but

26:22

Kristen was part of my life since

26:25

I was like a very young age, I

26:27

knew who I was. Kristen is a transgender

26:29

woman and the author of Warrior Princess,

26:32

a US Navy Seals journey to coming out

26:34

transgender. After she left the military,

26:37

she made the courageous decision to live in accord

26:39

with her gender identity, not the sex she

26:41

happened to be assigned at birth. She has

26:43

now gone on to become one of the country's most celebrated

26:46

transactivists, but like

26:48

many trans people, Kristen has also

26:50

faced a number of harrowing challenges in the

26:52

process of her transition from daily

26:54

harassment and discrimination to acts

26:56

of physical violence. I wanted

26:59

to learn how Kristen's expertise in mental contrasting

27:02

helped her navigate this difficult personal challenge.

27:05

Her honest answer blindsided

27:07

me and taught me that the lives of

27:09

the mind go way deeper than we

27:11

often realize. The

27:14

happiness lab will be right back. Unless

27:23

we understand what the obstacle is, we

27:25

will not have the energy to overcome

27:27

the obstacle, and we will also when

27:29

we don't imagine the obstacle, we will

27:32

not be creative in finding

27:34

solutions to overcome the obstacle. Gabrielle

27:37

Outingen's work on mental contrasting has

27:39

shown just how powerful thinking about our

27:41

obstacles can be. Her studies

27:44

have shown time and again that simulating

27:46

the barriers to our goals can give us

27:48

the motivation we need to solve them. The

27:50

blood pressure goes up provides

27:53

the oxygen to get going.

27:56

But there's one more feature of mental contrasting

27:58

that makes it such a powerful strategy. It

28:01

gets our minds to start planning. When

28:03

we think about obstacles, our brains

28:06

naturally want to search for solutions to those

28:08

obstacles. Very often, this solution

28:10

comes already when you think about the obstacle. When

28:12

you imagine the obstacle happening, you will

28:15

suddenly understand, Ah, this

28:17

is what I could do in order to

28:19

overcome the obstaclet Why didn't I

28:21

discover that years ago? Thinking

28:24

through all those inner and outer obstacles drives

28:27

our mind into plotting mode. We turn

28:29

on our inner navy seals. We hunger

28:31

down at our mental stand tables to work out

28:33

a plan that can successfully overcome

28:36

the barrier we've identified. But

28:39

Gabrielle has found a new way to put this planning

28:41

process into overdrive by

28:43

adding one additional form of mental

28:45

practice. In addition to

28:47

simulating the obstacles, Gabrielle

28:50

recommends also taking time to imagine,

28:52

very intentionally, what it would

28:54

feel like to implement our plan whenever

28:56

the obstacle comes up. Kind of

28:58

like what Michael Phelps did in his training. If

29:01

goggles come off, then take exactly nineteen

29:03

strokes. This intentional simulation

29:06

of an if then plan is a strategy

29:08

that researchers have called implementation

29:10

intentions. The practice was developed

29:12

by Gabrielle's husband, the psychologist

29:14

Peter Goldwitzer. The couple

29:17

has now teamed up to study the power of

29:19

using these two mental practices in parallel.

29:22

They've even tied the two techniques together into

29:24

one convenient package. It's even got

29:26

a hanti acronym whoop woop,

29:29

that's right, that's right, whoop, which

29:32

means wish, outcome

29:34

obstacle and then plan. So

29:37

it is identify a wish that

29:39

is dear to your heart, find

29:41

the best outcome and imagine

29:44

it. Find the inner

29:47

central obstacle, meaning

29:49

the obstacle in you that

29:52

stands in the way, and imagine

29:54

the obstacle, and then

29:57

form an if then

29:59

plan. So wish

30:02

outcome obstacle plan.

30:05

So that's then what we call whoop.

30:08

Let's try it now really quickly. What's

30:11

something you wish for? What's

30:13

a goal you really want to achieve in life?

30:16

Now take a second to think of the outcome, what

30:19

your life will really be like if you

30:21

actually achieve that wish,

30:23

But what are the obstacles? Non

30:27

judgmentally think of what's really

30:29

in your way? And

30:32

now that you know the obstacles, what's

30:34

your plan how will you actually overcome

30:37

the barriers to realize in your goal.

30:40

That only took a few seconds and Gabrielle

30:42

recommends taking a bit longer to whoop, but

30:45

you get the general idea. It's

30:47

a simple technique, but one that's really

30:49

powerful. Research shows it helps

30:51

people eat healthier, lose more weight,

30:54

study more effectively, and even procrastinate

30:56

less. It can help depress people exercise

30:59

and be more social, and even helps patients

31:01

recover faster and take their medications

31:04

more regularly. When you ask

31:06

people, how did it work for you, the

31:09

obstacle didn't appear, so they can't

31:11

even remember that the obstacle appeared

31:14

because they've just automatically summar

31:16

did it. And that's why whooping

31:18

is so powerful. It harnesses

31:20

the processes we learned about in the first

31:22

part of this episode. One of the most

31:24

awesome features of our mind. Our brains

31:27

can automatically learn from mental

31:29

practice. Imagine eating

31:31

a bunch of M and m's and you've learned

31:33

what it feels like you're done eating them.

31:35

Imagine swimming the perfect race and

31:37

your brain knows what to do. And imagine

31:40

the solution to a tough obstacle and your

31:42

brain has already figured out how to overcome

31:44

it automatically. But

31:47

there is one small challenge to whooping.

31:49

Like all other good things in life, we actually

31:52

have to do it for it to work, and

31:54

that can be tough in reality, not

31:56

just because it takes time, but

31:58

also because doing it well involves

32:01

taking a long, hard look at yourself and

32:03

your circumstances. Whatever

32:05

the obstacle is, it needs

32:07

to be identifying, honestly,

32:10

without excuses, and then you can

32:13

see whether you will be able

32:15

to overcome it or not. Whooping

32:18

works because it forces you to ask some tough

32:21

questions. What are my inner obstacles?

32:24

What am I afraid of? What are my

32:26

real priorities? What are my insecurities?

32:29

Are the people around me preventing me from

32:31

doing what I really want? People

32:34

who employ techniques like whoop know that this

32:36

part, the unfettered honesty can

32:38

be daunting. Remember what Bob Bowman

32:40

told his swimmers. Every day, it takes

32:43

what it takes. Some obstacles

32:45

require a lot of work, and that can be

32:47

tough to come to terms with, so tough

32:50

that we sometimes would rather put on blinders

32:52

and just think positive instead. Even

32:55

people who understand the power of mental practice

32:57

aren't always able to put the work in for goals

32:59

that really matter are most personal

33:02

ones, the ones that involve a really

33:04

long, hard look at the inner obstacles

33:06

we face. It's worse than

33:08

combat because combat is very

33:11

cut and dry. But this

33:13

is, this

33:16

is you don't know. When

33:20

Kristin left the Navy Seals and began her

33:22

transition, she found enemies on all

33:24

sides. I'm one

33:26

of one. I'm the only transgender

33:28

Navy seal. I'm the only female Navy seal.

33:31

I'm the only however you want to explain

33:33

it, I'm a very small minority.

33:36

I went to the inauguration

33:38

of Donald Trump, and people are

33:40

angry at me for doing it. It It says, why would you do that? And

33:42

I said, because I was being visible, because I was

33:44

sitting there amongst all of these people and all

33:47

the supporters and everyone that loves

33:49

our president. There automatically

33:51

have all those respect for the military and patriots

33:53

and all the stuff that they talk about. But they

33:55

don't respect transgender people. But now

33:57

they're in a weird conundrum whether what are

33:59

they gonna do. They're not gonna walk up to me and start

34:02

yelling at you're disrespecting me because they can't because the nets

34:04

against a uniform. So they're in a really

34:06

weird spot that I forced them into.

34:08

I'm gonna worth you to be with

34:10

me and talk to me and be respectful,

34:13

and they are. Kristen has

34:15

been made to feel like an outsider on the other

34:17

side of the political aisle as well. Some

34:20

liberals are suspicious of anyone who served

34:22

so long in the military, and Kristin

34:24

says people make assumptions about her all the

34:26

time, so it kind of bums me out. You

34:28

know. It makes me feel like I'm

34:31

not worthy or valid even amongst

34:33

the LGBT community, And I'm not worthy

34:36

or or validated amongst

34:38

the women's groups or the civil

34:41

rights groups because they never invite

34:43

the end. But Kristen's new identity

34:45

also brought more intense challenges than

34:47

feeling misunderstood on both sides. Like

34:50

many transgender people, she also

34:52

faced physical violence. In two

34:55

twelve, I was out in

34:57

Florida and I was walking down this

35:00

sidewalk and I was alone, which is

35:02

a mistake that I learned the hard way. I

35:04

was ignorant to the fact that I had to always

35:06

protect myself and always be on guard. So I'm

35:08

walking on a sidewalk and four dudes

35:11

I don't want to call them gentlemen because I definitely weren't.

35:13

One of them ran out behind me real fast and

35:15

he was yelling fag and hit

35:18

me in the back of the head, total sucker punch,

35:20

and I was knocked out and I went down like a

35:22

sack of potatoes. I'm on the ground with

35:24

four guys not for me, you know, trying

35:26

to kill me. So I gained my conscienceness

35:28

back and I was getting up and

35:31

one of them kicked me my head just like a

35:33

football boom. I got knocked out again. How

35:35

do you bounce back from something like that or how

35:38

do you survive knowing

35:41

that this is the world that you're going to live in? And

35:44

so at that point I started really looking

35:46

at my life and looking at the world around me in a

35:48

whole different light. And that's

35:50

kind of when I started becoming an activist. After

35:53

Kristin recovered, she made a film about

35:55

her story set up her own charity and

35:57

even ran for a seat in Congress. She

36:00

has now dedicated her time and energy

36:02

to the biggest fight of her life, making

36:04

the world safer and more inclusive for trans

36:06

people. And as you might imagine, a

36:09

challenging goal like that faces lots

36:11

and lots of obstacles. And

36:14

that was why I wanted to talk with Kristen so

36:16

badly for this episode. Do you use

36:19

the same process that you use as a seal? You

36:21

know? Do you get out the sand? Do you think through

36:23

all these negative scenarios. It's

36:26

a great point, and I wish I did, but

36:28

I don't, And maybe that's one

36:30

of my problems. I'll be

36:32

honest. I was pretty shocked

36:34

by this reply. Kristen has

36:37

years of training in the power of negative

36:39

thinking. She knows better than anyone

36:41

that hope isn't a replacement for planning,

36:43

but even she has trouble thinking about the obstacles

36:46

when it comes to the goals that are most dear

36:48

to her, especially when those obstacles

36:51

aren't just personal but societal

36:53

as well. Looking head on at

36:55

the real barriers can be scary, but

36:57

it's a necessary step from making big

36:59

changes. But Kristen's

37:01

not alone. We all find it tough to

37:03

look directly at the hurdles that stop

37:06

us from achieving what we care about most deeply,

37:09

and even once we're ready to face those obstacles,

37:11

we sometimes have trouble taking the time we need

37:14

to practice these techniques. Kristen's

37:16

military training required hours and hours

37:19

of practice at those sand tables. The

37:21

seals also gave her the structure she needed

37:23

to take the necessary time to imagine and

37:25

plan. But Kristen can't do that nowadays

37:28

because there are many forms of activism keep

37:30

her really, really busy and famished

37:32

for time. So you talked about

37:35

the whoop and the planning, and

37:37

if I planned well, I don't have the

37:39

luxury to clianic because I feel like I'm always playing catch

37:41

up. The science

37:44

shows the many benefits of mental practice.

37:47

You increase the chances of achieving

37:49

realistic goals. You can discard

37:51

the impossible fantasies which make you feel

37:53

defeated and a bit guilty. You

37:55

can even harness your brain to work with

37:57

you rather than against you, pursuing

38:00

your objectives with greater energy and

38:02

self confidence. But as we've

38:04

seen in this episode, mental practice and

38:06

whooping takes work. Successfully

38:08

get to our goals requires an honest

38:11

look at the real challenges we face,

38:13

and doing it right takes time. It

38:16

might just be five minutes of quiet reflection,

38:19

but even those few minutes can feel prohibitive

38:21

when we're already feeling overwhelmed by

38:23

the challenges ahead. But there's hope

38:25

for all of us. Kristin told me after

38:27

our interview that our discussion changed her that

38:30

she's planning to bring whoop and other techniques

38:32

into her activism despite the hard work

38:34

it takes. I've had a lot of goods and bads,

38:37

and I do find that the

38:39

balance that we can find between

38:42

the goods and the bads, between seeing

38:44

life is positive but also knowing that negatives

38:46

exist and a plan for those negatives,

38:49

and to try to understand that, you know, life

38:51

is not always going to be perfect,

38:54

and it's not going to always be fun. That you're

38:56

going to run into some hard times and some

38:59

difficult situations. Taking

39:01

a long, hard look at the struggles ahead is

39:03

not as enjoyable as fantasizing about

39:05

how amazing it would feel so simply have

39:07

achieved our goals, to have learned that new

39:10

language, run that half marathon, or

39:12

created a more inclusive society for people

39:14

of all identities. Often

39:17

it feels easier to put on our rose colored

39:19

glasses and ignore the challenges ahead.

39:22

But that's not the way we become our best selves

39:24

or our best societies. Even

39:27

a podcast about happiness recognizes

39:29

that sometimes we got to look on the dark

39:32

side. The good news is

39:34

that once we take the time to do that, once

39:36

we face the obstacles head on, our

39:38

minds give us the power to harness the automatic

39:41

energy that comes from mental contrasting

39:43

and planning. It comes really easy

39:46

once we do the work. We've just got

39:48

to put the time in. It only takes

39:50

a few minutes a day, and the benefits

39:52

of that work can be impressive. I

39:55

had to go through forty some years of

39:57

denying who I was. I'm looking in a mirror and kind

39:59

of hate myself. But

40:02

I've made it and I'm here and now I'm

40:04

happy. So just put your head down and be

40:07

good to yourself. The question

40:09

why will you finally be good to yourself? Why

40:12

will you actually put your head down and take

40:14

the time needed to whoop it up, play that

40:16

mental obstacles videotape and move

40:18

toward the goal You've been fantasizing about.

40:21

When you're done, you can come back and learn more

40:23

concrete strategies for meeting your goals,

40:26

ones that will cover in the next episode of

40:29

The Happiness Lab with me Doctor

40:31

Laurie Santos.

40:41

If you enjoyed the show, I'd be super grateful

40:44

if you could spread the word by leaving a rating

40:46

and a review. It really does help other

40:48

listeners find us, and don't forget

40:50

to tell your friends. If you want

40:52

to learn more about the science you heard on the show, then

40:55

check out our website Happiness Lab dot

40:57

fm. You can also sign up for our newsletter

40:59

to get exclusive content. The

41:02

Happiness Lab is co written and produced by

41:04

Ryan Dilley. The show is mixed and mastered

41:06

by Evan Viola and edited by Julia

41:08

Barton, fact checking by Joseph Fridman,

41:11

and our original music was composed

41:13

by Zachary Silver. Special

41:15

thanks to Mia LaBelle, Carly mcgliorre

41:18

Heather Faine, Maggie Taylor, Maya

41:21

Kanig, and Jacob Weisberg. The

41:23

Happiness Lab is brought to you by Pushkin Industries

41:26

and Me Doctor Laurie Sanders