When we believe we can do more and achieve more (or when others believe it for us), that is often the precise reason we do achieve more.

Shawn Achor, The Happiness Advantage

Sometimes we forget how important some of the signals we send are to the mood and success of the people we interact with. I was struck by a couple of examples that Shawn Achor provided in the The Happiness Advantage and how a renewed focus on the tone, body language, facial expressions and the little things we say along the way could be a factor in increasing positivity and success.

One example from Achor’s book described a study done at the Yale School of Management where students were put on teams to work together for an imaginary company. Each team had an actor who was their manager and they each spoke to their teams in a different tone. The tones used on the four teams were the following: cheerful enthusiasm, serene warmth, depressed sluggishness and hostile irritability. It is not hard to figure out which of the two groups made the most profit during the exercise.

Check your tone at the door

While it may seem like a no-brainer, how much do we really pay attention to our tone and body language during our interactions? We often take energy from a previous interaction into our next interaction and if the prior interaction was a negative one, we may be emitting some of that negative energy into the mix. Doug Smith recommended that one hack for this is thresholding. Whenever you pass through a threshold, focus on what is within that room.

The second example from The Happiness Advantage was the discussion about the importance of our words. “A few key words here and there can make all the difference,” Achor noted. “For instance, when researchers remind elderly people that cognition typically declines with age, they perform worse on memory tests than those who had no such reminder.” Achor also referenced the 1968 study Pygmalion in the Classroom where teachers were told that a group of “ordinary” students were the ones with the greatest potential for growth. At the end of the year, these students posted off-the-charts on tests of intellectual ability.

Our lives are greatly impacted by the stories that we believe to be true and many times these are stories that have been told to us by others. As I look at the post above and share the fact that every “we” is used to take away the vulnerability that would be present if it were replaced with an “I”, I think it is worth the time to make sure that my story is not fixed and that it is not inhibiting others to write beautiful ones for themselves.