232: How to Be a Better Leader by Being More Positive with Brenda Bailey-Hughes

Pete Mockaitis
Brenda, thanks so much for joining us here on the How To Be Awesome At Your Job podcast.

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
Thank you, Pete, for having me. I’m so excited.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I’m excited too. Now, I want to hear a little bit about you. You bicycled through Ireland, and your mother was bicycling as well at 73 years old. Is this true?

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
This is true. I think she is one of my role models for positivity actually because there’s nothing that she thinks she can’t do. She’s just all in on so many adventures, so. I think it’s been five years ago that dad passed away and she became this widow, but she said, “You know, I’m not going to quit traveling. Let’s go.” And so, since then we’ve climbed the Grand Canyon together, spent the night at the bottom and climbed back out, and, like you said, we cycled across the Connemara Bay area of Ireland.

I teach in South Korea in one of our sister schools in early next year, and I think I’ve got her talked into touring Seoul with me while I’m there. So, lots of fun with mom and a great positive role model.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that sounds like a whole lot of fun. Very cool. Very cool. And you could hear it in your voice, there’s great positivity in your voice and partially transmitted through your excellent microphone, which we discussed several minutes before we pushed record, so that is appreciated by all of us. And so, I discovered you through LinkedIn Learning, which I love, and thanks to them again for sponsoring.

You got this course Being Positive at Work, and I’m intrigued. So, you teach communication courses and global leadership courses, and you thought, “You know what, being positive is a critical topic that needs to get taught.” What’s sort of your thought process behind that?

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
Right. So, it was actually the lead was the leadership training. So, I teach leadership skills, personal leadership courses at the Kelley School of Business, so both the undergrad level and the MBA level I’m working with these aspiring leaders and young leaders and so I’m studying leadership all the time, reading the literature on leadership, and there just kept being this connection between being a great leader and being positive.

So, I was actually setting out to study and teach leadership but kind of got dragged into positivity because I was just curious about, “What is this connection and why do I keep seeing a correlation?” And so, it was my interests in leadership, but then I thought, “Okay, I’m going to do this deep dive into positivity.” And once I started down that avenue, oh, my gosh, Pete, it became personally transforming in my own life.

My students, who then I started talking about this positivity puzzle and piece and how it fits together with leadership, and they started coming back and saying, “Brenda, oh, my gosh, this is changing my world. I can’t believe all the changes that have happened and all the things that are improving in my world because of my positive focus.”

And so that’s when LinkedIn reached out, and then we decided this is a course in and of itself. It doesn’t have to be positioned just as a leadership concept but everyone can benefit from the thoughts around positivity.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m intrigued. So, could you share with us an example from your own life or from the research, some of the most compelling stuff that says, “Wow, this is no joke, supremely beneficial, and it is documented and for real”?

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
Yes, absolutely. And I think that’s a great place to start because it does sound a little, “Hmm, I’m just going to think happy thoughts and click my heels together and everything will…” you know, and it’s like so, “Is this stuff real?” So, I think that’s a great conversation for us to have. If you look at Kim Cameron’s work, he’s written a great little very accessible book called Positive Leadership. And in it he cites over something like 40 different studies correlating positivity and health benefits.

And so, well, it’s corollary not causal but there’s still some sort of connection there. And then he pushes me on that and we start looking at actual causal relationships between positivity, and we see things like the fact that leaders that are rated as and consider themselves more positive, they make better decisions. I think that’s because of the funnel effect that when we think more broadly because we haven’t ruled out everything through our negative dispositions we just have more options available to us, and thus our decision-making is better.

We have research that connects creativity to positivity. So, for example, Pete, if I were to ask you right now, tell me three things that you’re grateful for today.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, sure thing, yes. That happened today or in general?

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
Or just that you’re just grateful for today. They could’ve happened today or they could’ve just been in your sphere of awareness today.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, sure. Well, I’m grateful for three great podcasts interviews, and so. Well, I guess, I’m assuming you’re going to end up fantastic because it’s a good start, so.

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
I love your approach. You could’ve said one, two, three and just knocked them all out with three different ones, but, see, you lumped them so now you still owe me two. Give me two more.

Pete Mockaitis
I did. Well, I am grateful that just things have calmed down a little bit just in terms of stress and workload and just too-muchness, so I’m grateful for the opportunity to breathe and to rest and to kind of decompress a little bit. And I am just grateful for good food and the sense that I’m capable of eating, there’s sufficient resources to not have to go hungry or be malnourished, and to be able to enjoy the food as opposed to just it’s purely sustenance like potatoes and eggs and that is all. It’s an enjoyable experience to eat with my wife and to have that.

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
Awesome. Okay. So, now when you do that small exercise of stating those three things, if I had had you hooked up to an MRI and we were watching the synapses in your brain popping, we were watching different parts of your brain snapping and sizzle and crack, right? Right then, when we started pushing to think about things that we are grateful for, things that are positive in our lives, more areas of your brain would start lighting up on that MRI than if I had asked you to talk about either a neutral or a negative something in your life.

So, this is an actual study where we’ve asked people to look at neutral or negative futures versus positive futures, and we see more areas of the brain sparking and lighting up. That’s our connection then to creativity. So, what is the power of positivity? It might make you healthier. It makes you a better decision-maker. It makes you more creative.

And then I think there’s also, I mean, that’s the research, but just anecdotally, think about it. If you walk into the workplace, and you’ve got Negative Nelly who’s nagging about this that went wrong, and griping about the weather, and complaining about the traffic, and bemoaning how boring the last staff meeting was.

But then you also have, in the same role, doing the same jobs, working with the same clients, the same customers, the same colleagues, you’ve got positive Paula over here, and she is cheery, and she is sunny, and she is bright, and she is happy, and she’s thoughtful, and she’s kind, and she’s grateful. Who do you want to spend time with? I mean, it’s always Paula, right?

We want to surround ourselves with these positive people so why not be these positive people. So, I think there’s that piece to it. It just makes our workplace more enjoyable. And then maybe the last benefit  that I should mention, and perhaps the most compelling, is just that we deserve it, Pete. We deserve to be happy. We deserve to flourish. We deserve to have a sense of gratitude with us at all times. And that’s what this practice of positivity provides us, is more flourishing, is more joy, is more happiness.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. I’m sold. That’s great. So, then, what are some of the key practices that brings about more positivity there? You know, it’s funny, I’m thinking right now when you talked about who do we want to be around at work. I remember there I had a colleague who was a manager, and nothing was hardcore and negative but there’s just a little bit of a nervous anxious kind of presence that I always just picked up on whenever I was around him.

And I remember he shared once that, in a review, he’d gotten some feedback that says, “When you enter a room, the anxiety in the room needs to decrease instead of increase.” And I thought, “Wow, that reviewer just really nailed it, you know. That’s a fantastic piece of feedback he picked up on and was able to deliver.” Now, the manager made a joke, he’s like, “So I wrote on my professional development plan, ‘Enter more nervous rooms so there’s nowhere to go but up.’” Hopefully, he took it to heart and has done something.

But I’m right with you there. It is very much contagious in that how it proliferates throughout an organization and group. So, then, I guess in practice, what do you do? I think in some people it’s kind of fixed, like, “Hey, there’s optimists and there’s pessimists.” So, I guess, what are the practices one can undertake?

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
Absolutely. We are somewhat predisposed to be more optimistic or pessimistic but certainly it is a learned skill. So, let’s start with that. You can learn these positive skills. All of us have some degree of that negativity hardwired into us. It’s in that survival part of our brain that says, “Hey, I kind of need to scan the environment for the sabretooth tiger that might jump out and eat me. I kind of got to be on alert for that.”

One of my subjects, and part of my research, was a marine, and so he literally had been trained to identify threats, that’s what he did for a living. And yet he knew that bringing that eye for threat into the rest of his life was not serving him well. And he made this intentional choice to become more positive, to put his focus on the things in life that are going well, the glass half-full instead of the glass half-empty, in all of the other arenas of his world. And it was just really life-changing for him.

But to your question about what is the practice. I think the baseline skill or practice becomes a recognition that we can choose our thoughts. We can choose our thoughts. And that when we’re in that space, if we choose to think the positive thoughts we’re setting up a whole positivity practice and all sorts of specific strategies that we can plug in.

So, let’s play with that one for a minute just to make sure that we really get it, that we get to choose to some extent. So, I want to do an experiment with you, Pete, and your listeners, too, as long as they’re not driving.

Pete Mockaitis
All right.

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
So, what I want you to do is do a 360 wherever you’re sitting or standing. Now, if you’re plugged into things, be careful that you don’t unplug us and disconnect the whole podcast in the middle of it, but just do a 360. And, as you’re turning around, Pete, I want you to notice everything you notice in your line of sight that is white, the color white. Just kind of notice it, be remembering that so that when you get back turned around, you should be coming back around full circle, you’re going to report in here in a minute. Are you back?

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Yes.

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
Have you made your 360? Okay, he’s back. And, listeners, hopefully, you’ve made your 360. Now, tell me everything you saw that was blue. Oh, dead air space.

Pete Mockaitis
There was, I got one.

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
You’ve got one. Okay, one. Right? How of many of you think are…? You can go ahead and glance around. If you had been looking for it, how many blue things were around? Probably more than one. Maybe.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m still counting.

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
Oh, you’re still counting.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, a dozen plus. A dozen plus.

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
A dozen? A dozen plus, but you could remember one. And the whole idea here is simply this. When you are set out to see one thing, everything, all the items in your sphere that are white, that’s what you’re going to see. If I had had you do the first circle looking for blue things, you would’ve seen those dozen plus things that were blue, right? We see what we set out to see.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes.

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
Does that make sense?

Pete Mockaitis
I’m with you.

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
So, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t great things going on around you if you’ve had a really lousy day. It means your eyes weren’t looking for them. So, when we make that conscious choice, “I’m going to get up today and I’m going to see the good that is around me because it is.” Then, lo and behold, you see it. It’s that conscious decision is the baseline or the threshold practice for all of the other positivity strategies.

Pete Mockaitis
Now, I love it, I’m with it, I see it. And now I’m wondering a little bit, even toward your premise we can choose our thoughts. I think that it seems like sometimes it’s easier and sometimes it’s harder when it comes to choosing thoughts. I think that, in particular, maybe, well, for me, it’s like if there is a lingering question that I’ve made some progress on but remains a bit elusive and mysterious, like I just ruminate on like, “Well, what’s the answer? How do we get there? What’s missing? What is the tactic, the strategy, the solution, the answer, the data points? How could I get it?”

If I were a detective I think I’d just go insane because it’s like, “You don’t crack a case in one day, you know. It could take months.” And so, my brain will just sort of pour over it. And I think other people that they have their areas of worry, or particular concerns, that are coming up for them, whether it’s financial or health, or, “Am I going to get the promotion?” “Am I going to get fired?”

I’m curious to hear, when our brains kind of want to just go into those grooves of worry or non-positive stuff, what do we do with that?

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
Right. Right. So, it’s like a bike wheel that’s kind of stuck in a groove. How do we stop it and move it over into this other groove? And stopping is part of it. So, as long it’s the wheel is in the groove, you’re right, it just kind of surface along with it. So, I think a couple of strategies for getting out of that worry rut, or that obsessive rut, would be to just consider the storyline that you’re telling yourself sometimes.

So, you were talking about the example of being worried about a particular question, like, “Yeah, I’ve got my teeth in it like this bulldog and I can’t think past it. I can’t get through the idea that I want to solve it. I want to solve it. I want to solve it,” and you’re just chewing on it all day long. So, maybe, just changing the story, telling yourself, “Hmm, instead of me obsessively having to deal with this, there might be other people out there who’ve wrestled with the same issue and have some enlightening ways to look at it. It might be more fun for me to get them involved in solving the problem with me.”

If you’re telling yourself a story that, “This is all on me. I absolutely have to be the one that resolves it,” and, like you said, “I have to resolve it today.” That’s a pretty tough story to deal with then. And, of course, you’re going to obsess or worry about it. I think another fun example of changing the story was when you and I first connected about doing the podcast.

I thought, “Huh, I’ve not done an audio non-face-to-face interview before. I’m a little nervous about this. Hmm, hmm.” And then I woke up in the middle of the night after I’d said yes, thinking, “Oh, my gosh, I said yes to doing a podcast with people I don’t know and in a medium I’m not very comfortable with or I don’t know very much about. Oh, my goodness, what have I done?”

So, I’m waking up in the middle of the night, and I’m noticing that my stomach has this little funny feeling about it whenever I think about the podcast. So, I could tell myself the story, “Oh, my goodness, I am scared of this. I have the potential to blow this. This is nerve-wracking.” Or, I could take those same exact physiological signals that I was getting – waking up in the middle of the night, feeling butterflies in your stomach, thinking about something a lot – and I could reframe the story.

So, for example, when I’m really excited about something, I have all of those same physiological responses. So, the night before my baby girl got married, you know, I’m waking up in the middle of the night, and I’m thinking about the wedding a lot, and I’ve got a little churning in my stomach, but it’s good stuff. I’m happy about it. I’m excited about it. So, if I name it “excitement” rather than nerves, anxiety, fear, suddenly those same physiological responses have a totally different storyline to it, and it busts up that worry wart or worry rut.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Very good. I like that. Anything else like in the heat of battle in terms of right there, you’re starting to go down that track? Anything that you can do sort of instantly?

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
Best, worst, most likely. Go ahead and play out what is the worst scenario that could possibly happen?
And it’s odd that I would recommend that because it seems counterintuitive to being positive, but sometimes I find that if that thought is already in there, sort of subtly haunting you, and you haven’t spoken it out loud, sometimes the fear associated or the worry associated with it is because we’ve allowed it to become almost laughably concerning.

And when we speak it out loud, we say, “Here’s what the worst-case scenario is,” it takes away some of its power because we’ve said it out loud. So, we just say, “Okay.” So, let’s imagine, Pete, that you have a new client, you’re getting ready to do some training for them, and you start down that worry rut, “Oh, my goodness.” In the back of your head, you’re thinking, “What if I don’t know what I’m talking about? I could blow it with this client. I could get in there, forget what I meant to say. They can hate my material.” So that’s kind of worrying you, you’re starting down that unsolvable condition issue. Then just go ahead and play it out.

So, Pete, what would be the worst possible scenario with this new client where you’re going to do some training? What’s the worst that could happen?

Pete Mockaitis
They experience one session, they say, “Never mind. That was terrible. We’re terminating this contract and there will be no money. Good day, sir.”

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
Yeah, “Good day, sir.” And what’s the worst that could happen if they terminate that contract and you only do one session with that client? What’s the worst thing that happens then?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I guess I don’t have that money and I feel like a loser.

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
Okay. So, you don’t have the money and you’re feeling kind of down about yourself. What’s the worst thing about that? What’s the worst that could happen when you’re feeling down about yourself and you don’t have that particular income?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, it’s funny, I’m having a hard time coming up with anything really bad.

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
Like, I’ll use my time elsewhere.

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
Yeah, “I’ll use my time elsewhere.” Exactly. “I’ll go find a client that I am better-suited with, or I will go learn something that I was missing for that client and I’ll have a new skillset next time around somewhere.” And that is exactly what worst case playing best, worst, most likely forces us into, like, “Oh, well, I’m really actually having a hard time figuring out what would be so awful.”

But if we don’t say it loud, sometimes what’s lurking, it’s like, “Oh, my gosh, I’m going to end up homeless. We’re going to be out on the street. My wife is going to leave me,” you know. Wait a minute. When we say it out loud it’s like, “No, none of that is even possible.” And the worst-case scenario isn’t all that absolutely horrible.

So, when you find yourself in that freaking out sort of mode, or the worry that won’t let go of you, just speak the worst-case scenario. But then, very quickly, switch and play best-case scenario. So, Pete, what’s the best-case scenario with this new client and the training program?

Pete Mockaitis
They are delighted and they tell everybody that they should book me, or they say, “Pete, every human in our organization needs this transformational knowledge. Can we please just pay you a licensing fee to have everyone exposed to it in our company intranet?

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
There you go. Best case. And, most likely, if it’s not the best, what’s the most likely?

Pete Mockaitis
If it’s not the best?

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
Yeah, sometimes it’s the best, right? But if there’s a most likely, if there’s something in between best.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, the most likely thing that would happen?

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
Mm-hmm.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, they’ll say, “That’s pretty solid. Thank you. Appreciate it, Pete.”

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
Yeah, exactly. So, that is one of the best strategies that we have for stopping that out-of-control compulsive worry, anxiety, fear or negativity. Best, worst, most likely. I love it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Cool. Thank you. Well, so then, I’m wondering, we talked about what to do in the rut, we talked about one practice with the naming three things you’re grateful for and how that primes your brain to find naturally other good stuff. What are some of the other practices we should bear in mind?

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
So, so far what we’ve been talking about is kind of reducing the negative thoughts, and then with that practice of gratitude we moved into the increase the positive thoughts. Now, when I designed the class, I decided that it would be a lot more fun, which, by the way, is one of the positivity strategies, is to figure out how to make every task on your plate as joyful and fun as possible.

So, when I look at designing a new course, there’s something a little overwhelming and lonely about thinking, “Okay, I’m going into the stacks of the library. I’m going to do this deep, deep, deep, deep dive into the literature,” and that’s fun for a while, but it gets sort of isolated. So, I said, “For every strategy that I develop out of the literature, I’m going to have a subject.”

Now, I’m using subject pretty loosely because these were friends, families, students and colleagues that were my willing partners in this program. “I’m going to assign one of these strategies to someone and have them experiment with it for a three-month period, report back how it worked for them, how it didn’t work for them, we’ll tweak it or ditch it, it will either make the cut and be in the class or it won’t.”

And then interviewing those people that had volunteered to play with these strategies that ended up in the course was so much fun, we had great laughs talking about it, and just a really great time. So, that is one of the strategies, is make it joyful. Now where was I going with this? Oh, so I’m talking with one of the people that I was interviewing about, “How do you pick the right strategy for you? And which strategy do you want to use?”

So, some of that begins with, “Well, do I have a lot of those negative thoughts?” in which case we want to push you more towards, let’s look at strategies that resolve negative thinking. “Or maybe my brain just isn’t filled with tons of negative thoughts, but I still want to leapfrog ahead and have even more positive thoughts.” So, then, we might look at strategies around creating a positive environment or nurturing positive relationships, those kinds of things.

But I had several of these interviewee subjects say, “You know, the strategy worked when I remembered it, but making that change of what your eyes focus on when you do your 360 is so hard.” So, a lot of our time was spent figuring out little triggers in the environment that would just help people remember to use their positive practice.

So, things like an environmental trigger, maybe if you work in an environment where you need a badge in and out. Every time you pick up your badge that’s your trigger, you go, “Oh, yeah, I’m looking for positive things today.” Or if you’re an energy drinker or a coffee drinker. Every time you pour yourself that next cup of coffee, that’s your moment to take a breath and then go, “Oh, yeah, I’m thinking about positive things today. I’m looking for three things that I can think about today that I’m grateful for.”

That helps create the practice. It helps create the habit which can be really challenging. So, that’s one thing, is finding those environmental triggers that will help you stay on task, I think. Changing the environment sometimes is another great way to increase your positive thoughts and your positive sense of wellbeing. So, just something as simple as putting flowers in the office, or cleaning off the desk, taking a movement break.

Plus, there’s some really interesting research coming out of Texas A&M right now about the difference in productivity people get when they’re allowed to have those standing desks so that they can just stand up or sit down throughout the day. And if taking a quick movement break is all it takes to sort of shake me up and put me back in a positive frame, I can afford a movement break a time or two during my day. So, those are some of the other specific strategies that I think are really helpful.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Oh, I dig it. I dig it. Well, so this is a nice collection. Can we talk a little bit about relationships and having those be positive?

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
Absolutely. Some really fascinating research by a researcher named Luzardo. He went in and interviewed, actually transcribed the meetings of some senior-level executive meetings, and what he found were the teams who had higher-performance rankings, and that was evaluated based on really bottom-line indicators, actual financial performance of the teams, 360 reports that they were getting, and customer survey feedback on the teams.

The teams that are just high-performance teams tended to have a five-to-one ratio of positive comments during their team meetings to constructive or negative comments. So, this is a team that is saying five times as often, “Hey, good job,” or, “Look what we did well last week,” or, “Thank you for this. I really appreciate that. I’m grateful for that,” as they are saying, five times as many of those kinds of comments as the kinds of comments where they would say, “Ugh, guys, we got to work on this.”

Now, it’s not that they don’t say that. I think that’s a common misperception about positivity that we need to grapple with a little bit. Being positive does not mean that we’re naïve, or that we stick our head in the sand and we ignore our problems. You can still be a realist. You’re a realist that looks for what is realistically good in the world rather than just what is realistically bad in the world.

So, those teams still had some tough conversations, they still gave each other critical feedback, they still talked about problems, but not as often as they talk about the great things going on. So, I thought that was really interesting from an organizational perspective. But then I stumbled on this literature by Dr. John Gottman, and he is a marriage counselor who can actually predict divorce rates with some pretty astounding reliability.

And if you know anything about social scientists, you know we rarely even make predictions because there are just too many intervening variables. But John does and he does really well. But one of his leading indicators of success of a marriage 15 years out is five-to-one ratio, that same ratio popped in this totally separate literature.

These two guys were not even reading each other’s research. They were in different worlds – marriage versus org com, organizational communication stuff. But they both hit that very same ratio which made it somewhat magical to me. I’m like, there is something special about five-to-one. So, if you’re nurturing a positive relationship, boy, just pay attention to that ratio.

Now, again, a trigger to help you remember to do it, I actually stick five pennies in one pocket and I move them over throughout the day, or as I’m working with a certain student or client or with my faculty team. I move them over to make sure that I actually did it, “Did I get five comments in?” And hopefully there was only one dime in the left-hand pocket getting moved to the right-hand pocket which represents my constructive feedback. So, again, just a little pneumonic device or a trigger to help you remember it.

But imagine your relationships and how positive they would be if we actually engage in these five-to-one positive to negative ratio all the time.

Pete Mockaitis
I dig that. And can you share a couple key phrases that you find yourself saying frequently that fit the bill when it comes to positivity?

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
Absolutely. So, “Thank you” is one of them. “Thank you for…” fill in with a specific. “I am grateful for…” and I think some people think grateful is an old-fashioned word, and maybe I’m an old-fashioned gal, but I can whip that word out and you can just see people’s shoulders sort of rise a little bit when you tell them that you’re grateful for something they have done. So, “Thank you,” “I’m grateful for,” “We did well at…” fill in the blank, you know.

“What an awesome job we did,” or, “you did on X.” That acknowledgement of a job well-done would be one of those key phrases. “Thank you,” “I’m grateful for,” “Wow!” just, “Wow, look at this great painting on the wall.” The building that I work in, I walk out to the parking garage and it’s like walking through an art museum, “Wow!” You’re just having that sort of almost the wonder of the world, the awe of the world which gets expressed with the word, “Wow!”

Pete Mockaitis
Excellent.

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
Those are some key phrases that I think would be helpful.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. Well, Brenda, tell me, is there anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
Again, just that idea that we spend quite a bit of our time, as we opened, talking about how to negate negative thoughts, but if we really just shift that focus more to the positive and worry less about negating the negative and instead more about, “Let’s just focus on the positive,” it sort of sorts itself out.

So, some interesting research that was cited in the Journal of Sports Psychology where, I don’t know, if you were in any athletics as a youngster, Pete, or marching band, or anything where you would have to… oh, well, you’re a trainer and a speaker, so I bet you’ve watched yourself on video recordings, right?

Pete Mockaitis
Sure, yes.

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
Okay. How often, when you’re watching those, do you zoom in on the things you did not do well versus what you did well? Can you kind of gauge it?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, it’s the majority. I mean, I don’t know the ratio precisely.

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
Yeah, that’s that sort of survival instinct kicking in, like, “I’ve got to find the mistake. I’ve got to stop the mistake.” Well, what this interesting research says that there are coaches who will have an athlete sit and watch the tape, “Right here. You see where you messed up? This is where you fumbled the ball, or this is where you dropped your dribble. This is where you didn’t make the move. So, watch it so you don’t ever do that again.” So, you’ve got that kind of coaching experience.

And then you have other coaches that say, “Hey, let’s watch you right here where you did it absolutely perfect. Watch. Watch how your feet are planted. Look at the swing of your arms. Look at the arc of the ball right there.” As a speaker it would be, “Look, Pete, look right here where you looked your audience right in the eye, and you used this particular turn of a phrase that was really sticky and resonated with your audience. And look right here when you…”

The athletes who spend their time focusing on the positive tapes or recordings rather than the negative have a substantially higher leap in their performance than the athletes that are being asked to watch the negative films. So, just choosing to focus on the positive of your own performance is a way to improve or enhance your performance more so than worrying about filling in every little gap that might exists.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s fantastic. That seems to resonate with sort of the strengths-based research.

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
But I think it’s proven out in the particulars of reviewing footage there.

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
Yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, I guess that would also likely concordantly apply to like reviews, performance appraisal and will cycle and such.

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
Right. Right. Absolutely. In our performance appraisals, are we hitting that five-to-one? Are we focusing on the positives and teaching people how to build to those? Now, granted, if we have these threshold skills that are preventing someone, that they have a gap that is so significant that it prevents them from performing well or from succeeding then, yes, we have to address the gap. But we’re not, on average, going to see as much performance enhancement by nitpicking through all the tiny gaps as we are just focusing on the strengths. And, like you said, that’s coming straight out of a strengths-based research, absolutely.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s great. Well, now, could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
Viktor Frankl, “The last of the human freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.” So, if your listeners aren’t familiar with Viktor Frankl’s work, he was an Austrian psychologist and a holocaust survivor. So, when I think of the circumstances that he witnessed and lived through, if he can say, “In any given set of circumstances, we have the human freedom to choose our attitude,” then, by golly, I’m sure we can.

Pete Mockaitis
Awesome. Thank you. And how about a favorite book?

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
Any of the books by Martin Seligman. He is the founding father of the positive psychology movement, and so his work Learned Optimism or his Authentic Happiness book, anything by Martin is just a great read to flesh out your understanding of positivity.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. And how about a favorite tool?

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
I love this little free app I downloaded called Lotus Bell. It periodically, throughout the day, will randomly send me a chime on my mobile device so that it’s my environmental trigger to go, “Oh, yeah, whatever I’m doing, take a breath. Remember, ‘Am I in a positive space? Are my thoughts where I want them to be? Am I seeing my glass as half-full or half-empty?’” So, I love that little random chime that pokes me throughout the day and gently reminds Brenda to be positive.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s intriguing. Can you set it in terms of, “Hey, chime me randomly somewhere between zero and 10 minutes, or zero and 60 minutes”?

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
Yeah, yeah, I think you have to download the paid version for the that but it’s not much. And then you can give it some parameters, like, “Don’t interrupt my meeting between 2:00 and 3:00 with a chime, but for the rest of the day I’d like them every 60 minutes or so.” Yeah, it’s a great little app.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, cool. Well, randomness is what I think is pretty nifty, because you could have occurring appointments, you know, in a number of ways and places, but the randomness, I think that really is a potent potential force for, “No, no, this does not happen at specified hours but rather we’re shifting gears into making this the default way of being.”

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
Yes, exactly. Excellent.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. That’s cool. And can you share a favorite habit?

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
I’m a journaler. I journal daily, and in that journal every day I have the gratitude. I actually write it down. So, where I asked you to do it verbally, there’s something powerful even about that, and like I said, that’s going to change some of the way your brain is functioning. But by putting it in writing, I can go back 15 or 20 years and grab an old journal and skim through it, and go, “Oh, yeah, I remember that. Oh, yeah, I remember that.” And somehow that gratitude begets even more gratitude.

Pete Mockaitis
Fantastic. And, Brenda, is there a particular nugget you share in your teachings or trainings that seems to really connect and resonate and get folks nodding their heads and taking notes?

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
Yeah, I think when they do that 360 circle and they realize they were just oblivious to all of the blue things in the room, even though there were dozens of them in their sight, that really wakes them up. And the nugget for them, then, is just this idea that you do have the power to choose your thoughts, to choose your frame of reference, to choose what you see within your day, so choose very wisely.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And, Brenda, if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
Oh, connect with me on LinkedIn, absolutely. I’ve got a profile on LinkedIn and that will then help people find LinkedIn Learning classes that I have available and I’ll have email addresses. I even have a LinkedIn discussion group on being positive. So, if your listeners want to explore some of these strategies, and then I guess I would challenge them to jump in and play with a strategy for a few weeks, and then hop into the discussion group and tell us how it went for you and what worked and what you loved about it.

Pete Mockaitis
Awesome. And do you have a final challenge or call to action you’d issue to folks seeking to be awesome at their jobs?

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
My final call to action, if you want to be awesome at your job, is be wise about your choices, be the person that people know will have something positive and joyful to say about every day. What did you say about your old manager? Be the person who brings into the room, not more anxiety, but more joy, more positivity when you walk into that room. That’s my challenge to you.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, perfect. Well, Brenda, this has been a whole lot of fun. Thanks so much for sharing this time and expertise. Your first ever podcast interview was outstanding, so I think that you have a bright future. You might have more invitations than you care to take after this.

Brenda Bailey-Hughes
Well, thank you, Pete. Thank you for being a great first interview or to get me over that leap. I appreciate it and I appreciate your questions and the opportunity to share some great thoughts about a topic that I think is, oh, so important.