Be a Better Leader: How to Inspire the People Around You

Leadership isn't just for CEOs, presidents, or generals. If someone is looking to you for guidance—whether it's at home, school, or the workplace—that makes you a leader too. So how can you show up better for the people who rely on you? Columbia Business School's Adam Galinsky, https://business.columbia.edu/faculty/people/adam-galinsky author of Inspire: The Universal Path for Leading Yourself and Others https://adamgalinsky.com/inspire-book/, believes that just a few simple lessons can make us better and more encouraging colleagues, parents and friends. Experts Mentioned: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/value-values-affirmation- Pamela Smith https://rady.ucsd.edu/faculty-research/faculty/pamela-smith.html, Professor of Economics and Management, UC San Diego Resources Mentioned: - "The Value of 'Values Affirmation' https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/value-values-affirmation" (Insights by Stanford Business, 2012) Related episodes of "The Happiness Lab": - "Sleep When You're Dead Tired (Live with Arianna Huffington) https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/the-happiness-lab-with-dr-laurie-santos/bonus-sleep-when-youre-dead-tired-live-with-arianna-huffington" - "Coach Yourself Through a Crisis https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/the-happiness-lab-with-dr-laurie-santos/bonus-coach-yourself-through-a-crisis" -"How to Be a Better Ally https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/the-happiness-lab-with-dr-laurie-santos/how-to-be-a-better-ally" - "Dump Your Inner Drill Sergeant https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/the-happiness-lab-with-dr-laurie-santos/dump-your-inner-drill-sergeant" - "How to Adopt a Growth Mindset https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/the-happiness-lab-with-dr-laurie-santos/how-to-adopt-a-growth-mindset" - "How to Thrive at Work" https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/the-happiness-lab-with-dr-laurie-santos/how-to-thrive-at-work- "How to Grow After Adversity https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/the-happiness-lab-with-dr-laurie-santos/how-to-grow-after-adversity" See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Laurie Santos?

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• 1:02Laurie Santos?

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• 1:59Laurie Santos?

  Pushkin.

• 2:05Laurie Santos?

  When you first think of what constitutes a leader, you might picture presidents, generals, and CEOs. But if you reflect a bit, it quickly becomes clear that many of us occupy some sort of leadership role. Parents and caregivers, they're leaders. So are college professors and coaches. Even if you're not officially a manager on your job, you're probably more experienced than at least one of your coworkers. And if that less senior person looks to you for guidance, then guess what? You're a leader too. Given that so many of us are being looked up to in at least some capacity, we should probably put more thought into becoming the best leaders we can be, which is why today's episode will be exploring how to inspire the people around you. And I've lined up a particularly inspiring guest.

• 2:48Speaker 03

  Hi, I'm Adam Galinsky. I'm a professor at Columbia Business School, and I'm the author of Inspire: The Universal Path for Leading Yourself and Others.

• 2:57Laurie Santos?

  Adam is one of the top business school professors in the world. His research has inspired the bosses of huge corporations and vast global organizations. But Adam has argued that the lessons that apply to folks leading tens of thousands of employees equally apply to the rest of us. And so Adam is passionate about making all of us more inspiring leaders. But what sparked his interest in this topic?

• 3:18Speaker 03

  Partially, it started because I was teaching at a business school, and I was asked to start teaching the Leadership in Organizations class. And just really loved teaching the class and sort of thinking about leadership and the skills that leaders needed. And I got a lot of opportunities to also interact with leaders, CEOs, presidents, a variety of different members of organizations, nonprofits, and just started learning a little bit more about their stories, but also the type of challenges they faced as a leader. And that, I think, really got me engaged.

• 3:49Laurie Santos?

  And one of the challenges you talk about in your new book is this importance of being inspired. Why does inspiration matter so much for leaders?

• 3:56Speaker 03

  The key sort of empirical foundation of all the research I've done on leadership is just asking thousands of people across the globe, a very simple question, which is, tell me about a leader that inspired you. And then also I ask people to tell me about another type of leader that also changed you inside. But instead of filling you with this wellspring of hope and possibility, they filled you with a seething cauldron of rage and infuriation. And I think that asking that question all over the world about leader that inspired you and infuriating, you know, really led me to have, I think, three really profound and fundamental insights about leadership and why this topic of inspiration is so important. The first thing I discovered very quickly and starting to ask these people

• 4:39Speaker 03

  is that the inspiring leader and the infuriating leader are mirror images of each other. Courageous versus cowardly, generous versus selfish, right? They're almost the exact opposites of each other. So they kind of exist on this continuum. Now, this continuum itself is made up of three universal factors. And so one of the most striking things about my research is that there's not a single characteristic of an inspiring leader that isn't mentioned in every single country in the world. And so one of the things about being this universal, and going back to your original question, like, why does this matter? Is it's like, it's really embedded in the human brain. It's really part of the cognitive architecture of the mind to really be

• 5:21Speaker 03

  sensitive to leaders on the one hand, and how leaders impact us on the other. The second big insight, besides being sort of these three universal factors along this continuum, is those three are the universal factors because they each satisfy a fundamental human need. One of the factors is what I call visionary, sort of how we see the world. And that satisfies the fundamental human need for meaning and understanding. And then another factor, which I call exemplar, sort of how we are in the world, right? That really satisfies the fundamental human need for protection and passion. And then the third factor is being a great mentor, how we interact with others. And that satisfies the fundamental human needs for a sense of belonging. And a sense of status or feeling respected by others.

• 6:02Speaker 03

  And then the third insight is that we're not born as inspiring people or infuriating people. It's our current behavior that inspires or infuriates. That means that each and every one of us can learn to be more inspiring, to impact people in a positive rather than a negative infuriating way by learning those characteristics, by nurturing them, by developing them, by practicing them.

• 6:23Laurie Santos?

  This was one of the insights that I found most striking when I read your book, because even I knowing some of the social science research just had the sense that there's some people out there that are just kind of naturally inspiring. And there's some, you know, the flip side, which I think is maybe relevant for some of us. There's some people out there that just seem like deeply, but very naturally infuriating. And what I loved about your book is that you're saying, no, like, we actually can get better at becoming inspiring ourselves. And maybe if we kind of have tendencies towards the not so inspiring side, there are things we can do to do better.

• 6:52Speaker 03

  Absolutely. And there's some things, I mean, obviously there are certain sometimes physical constraints that we experience in the world, but we can still train ourselves to present ourselves in a way that impacts people more positively. One example is Margaret Thatcher. When she became Prime Minister of England, her voice was a little annoying. And she actually, with a voice coach, learned to train her voice to be more effective. Now, later on, you know, 20 years later, I was doing research on how power affected people's voices. And what we found is that when we put people in the positions of power, their voice actually became similar to what Margaret Thatcher's voice was trained to be, which was sort of a constant pitch. So that means that your voice is kind of steady, you know, it's not going like this or this, you know,

• 7:36Speaker 03

  but also being dynamic in volume so that you sort of talk softly, but then you raise your voice without losing the pitch. And so this dynamic, steady voice is something that Margaret Thatcher learned to produce. And that naturally occurs when we think about times when we were powerful, for example. But we can also learn to develop that voice directly also.

• 7:56Laurie Santos?

  I love this example of these moments where you happen to have been powerful, because I think sometimes when folks are learning about your work or hearing about the book, they could kind of think like, this is for leaders, right? Adam works with CEOs and kind of, you know, heads of big nonprofits and things like that. But in the book, you argue there's times when we all need to think about being a leader. So give me a sense of like, why everybody listening right now has probably been a leader in some context in their lives.

• 8:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I mean, when we're a leader, people are looking up to us and they're looking for something from us, right? And it could be guidance, it could be support, it could be protection. And so whenever there's someone that's looking towards us, we are, in a sense, a position of leadership for them. So sometimes we look to our spouse, right? Sometimes we look to a friend. Sometimes kids look to their parents. We're often in these positions where people are looking up to us to help them in some way and guide them and protect them or nurture them in some sort of important way. And sometimes it's to help us see the world differently, right? That's where visionary comes in. And so if they help the person see the world in a broader and more creative or more insightful way, you've actually

• 9:02Speaker 03

  been their leader, essentially, in helping them see a different vision. And so I think leadership is really about the positions we're in, but also the behaviors that we're engaging in.

• 9:12Laurie Santos?

  And when we wind up in those positions, we have eyes on us in a different way. We're sort of on this metaphorical stage. You've talked a lot about this idea of the leader amplification effect. What's that?

• 9:22Speaker 03

  So yeah, the leader amplification effect is, you know, whenever we're in a position of leadership, and again, you don't have to be in that hierarchical position. It could be worse. Again, people are looking up to you, looking for you for guidance, protection, nurturance, whatever it is, that people are paying attention to us. And you're a cognitive psychologist, so you know that like, attention is really the province of intensification. Like, anything that we pay attention to, and we have more intensified reactions to, and those get amplified inside of us and impact us more. And so the leader amplification effect is essentially that when we're on that stage and there's more eyes on us and that attention is on us, everything we do is sending a signal that is impacting people, and those signals get amplified. You know, one of the examples I like to give is sort of, you know, maybe

• 10:05Speaker 03

  a casual constructive comment becomes humiliating criticism when it comes from a leader, but also maybe an offhand compliment becomes glorious praise, you know, in the hands of a leader. And so one of the things that I've discovered is that all of my behavior is impactful for people, even if I'm not aware of it, right? And so whenever we're in this position of leadership, we really see how our behavior affects others.

• 10:30Laurie Santos?

  You shared one example of this from another leadership context that I think so many people are in, but we don't think of it often, is this idea of being a parent as a leader. You had a story of parent amplification effects with your son that I found quite common, but also quite disturbing, if you don't get it right. Would you share that here?

• 10:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, sure. So, you know, I would say that maybe one of my single greatest joys that I've ever had in the world is my older son has for almost his entire life, when he wakes up, he comes into our bedroom and he crawls in the bed and he just wraps his body around mine and then sort of goes back to sleep. You know, for years and years, we've had these snuggle moments in the morning and it just fills me with joy. But one morning, he came in much earlier than usual, let's say 5:00 AM instead of like 6:30. And I was working on the book and I had gone to sleep much later than usual, like 1:00 AM. And when he snuggles, he also moves around and so it's hard to go back to sleep. And so normally I just lay there and enjoy the experience, but this time I just need to get some sleep. And so I got out of bed and I went to the couch and slept for like another hour and a half.

• 11:30Speaker 03

  And then a few days later, I just noticed that he wasn't snuggling with me. He'd come into the bed, but it'd kind of go almost like to the end of the bed, like where a dog would sleep. So after like two days, I said, Asher, why aren't you snuggling with me? And he said, because you don't want to snuggle with me. And I was like, that's not true. He's like, yes, it is. And I tried to convince him otherwise. And then later that afternoon, I put two and two together and I was like, ah. So when I got out of bed the other day. So I went to him that night and I said, hey, Asher, were you upset when I got out of bed the other day? And he said, yes. And I said, is that why you think I don't want to snuggle with you? And he said, yeah. I said, I explained to him that it had nothing to do with him. I was just a little tired and I'm so sorry. And then the next day he came back and got into bed with me. But I had to tell you one other story from the parent amplification effect.

• 12:14Speaker 03

  It's my favorite one that made me think about it is there's a doctoral student, Erica Bailey, who's now a professor at Berkeley. And she told me a story about when she was around 12, her and her sister both played the piano. And she overheard her mom say to a friend, oh, both my girls are really good at piano, but Erica's sister has a real knack for it. And Erica was so incensed by this that she literally never played piano again. And what's crazy about this story is I met the mom and I mentioned the piano story. And her mom's like, what are you talking about? And I was like, do you not know why your daughter quit piano? And she's like, no, it's just like with my son, I didn't know why he was mad at me, you know? And so we have these reactions and that's true as a leader, right?

• 12:57Speaker 03

  You could have these people having reactions that have no idea why they've turned on you, you know? And it could be just a misunderstanding.

• 13:03Laurie Santos?

  And this is why I think figuring out how to become inspiring is so important, right? Because in all these kind of minor leader roles, it might be something we're totally inadvertently doing that we absolutely don't realize, but it's because of this sort of amplification effect gets perceived by somebody else as really horrible criticisms, or just like your deep belief that somebody's not good at something. And honestly, I find that kind of terrifying, right? Just being in as many leadership positions as I am, both just like in my normal life as a friend and a good colleague, but also, you know, being a podcast host and a professor. It's terrifying to think that my inadvertent actions that I don't even realize are that, you know, visible or kind of big seeming wind up really deeply affecting somebody's lives in ways that I don't think.

• 13:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I think a lot of times we don't recognize when we're in these roles. So just to give you one classic example would be a middle manager, right? Or in my case, when I was an assistant professor, so I'm an untenured member of the faculty, I think of myself as a low-power position. Like, I'm going to one day be voted on for tenure by the senior faculty, but to doctoral students, I'm in this credible high-power position. Like, they depend on me for research, resources, letters, recommendation, opportunities. And one of the things that I realized over time is that even as like an assistant professor, my offhand comments could have big impact. One story that I didn't put in the book, I had a doctoral student and she came to me with a dissertation idea. Apparently, I said to her, and I vaguely remember saying it, "There's literally nothing interesting

• 14:26Speaker 03

  in your idea." Like, literally nothing interesting. And I was just trying to push her to get more interesting, but like, that almost broke her. And then apparently, she came back a month later and I said, "There's something potentially interesting." And then, you know, a month later, I actually told her, "Wow, that's a really good idea." And apparently, she called all of her friends and said, "You know, we're going out getting drunk tonight because Adam finally liked my idea." That progression, to me, they were inconsequential. You know, they were just offhand comments, but for her, each one was like deeply impactful.

• 14:53Laurie Santos?

  So if mild criticism can prove more devastating than we think, what should inspiring leaders say to boost morale and performance? Well, it turns out a kind word and compliment can help. Adam will share his how to give praise 101 when the Happiness Lab returns in a moment.

• 15:10Laurie Santos?

  There's nothing quite like having pieces in your closet you love and know you can count on for any occasion, except maybe giving someone else that same feeling. And I have to tell you, when it comes to my go-to gift this season, I think this might be the year of the hoodie. Specifically, Quince's Mongolian Cashmere Full Zip Hoodie, which I bought for myself and absolutely love. You know when you get something that's so comfortable, so soft, and so easy to throw on that you suddenly want to wear it every day? That's where I am with this hoodie. And I started to think that instead of agonizing over what to get everyone on my holiday list, I might just buy them all one of these. I mean, who on my list wouldn't love a gift of perfect coziness? But it's not just hoodies. Quince makes elevated everyday essentials using premium materials like Mongolian cashmere

• 15:54Laurie Santos?

  and organic cotton. And if a cashmere hoodie isn't quite right for someone on your list, Quince has so much more. From leather bags and jewelry, to cozy scarves, down outerwear, and even hotel-quality bedding. Give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was the Happiness Lab. It's the best way to support the show. With the holidays coming up, I've been thinking a lot about how to make my new sabbatical place feel a little more like home and a little more festive for hosting friends and family. So after recently getting an awesome new living room rug from Wayfair, I wanted to

• 16:38Laurie Santos?

  pull the whole look together. I found these gorgeous round ruched velvet pillows on Wayfair and bought them in a bunch of different colors to complement the rug. They're soft, they add a fun pop of color, and they make my apartment feel so much more pulled together and ready for the holidays. For all things hosting, Wayfair delivers high-quality, customer-trusted products for your home, so you can host and celebrate without the stress. And with Wayfair Verified, you can create a home that stands up to real life with quality products, great value, and trusted reviews. Their products are hand-vetted by product specialists using a 10-point quality inspection. These days, I've been using Wayfair a lot, and I think you should too. When refreshing your home this holiday season, Wayfair delivers exactly what you need.

• 17:21Laurie Santos?

  Head to wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R dot com.

• 17:27Speaker 04

  Wayfair, every style, every home.

• 17:30Laurie Santos?

  What if I told you your skin and your brain are often in conversation? It's true, and that's why what you feel shows up on your skin. Think goosebumps, blushing, and even signs of stress. Tatcha harnesses the skin mind connection to create skincare rituals that care for both skin and mind. At the heart of Tatcha's formulas is Hadasei-3, their proprietary complex that counteracts visible signs of stress on skin. It's made up of three Japanese ingredients that are double fermented to harness 400-plus micronutrients. These micronutrients synchronize your skin's natural renewal cycles and boost resilience to daily stressors for visibly firmer, smoother, breathtaking skin. Visit tacha.com and use code HAPPINESS

• 18:15Laurie Santos?

  for 15% off your first purchase. That's T-A-T-C-H-A dot com and use code HAPPINESS for 15% off. If I could permanently delete one thing from my brain, I think it would be the memory of all those little awkward interactions that my brain insists on replaying at 2:00 a.m. You know the ones. You said something mildly embarrassing during a dinner party, and suddenly your brain decides it's time for a full cinematic replay. As a psychologist who studies happiness, I know that our minds aren't always great at deciding what deserves our attention. We tend to give these awkward moments way, way more mental real estate than they deserve. But knowing that intellectually doesn't mean it's easier to let them go. And that's one of the reasons that therapy can be so valuable. Therapy gives you a chance to step back

• 18:59Laurie Santos?

  and to understand the patterns that you're stuck in so that you can find healthy ways to move forward. If you're thinking about trying therapy, you should check out BetterHelp. BetterHelp will connect you with a licensed, experienced therapist, and they do the initial matching work for you based on your needs and preferences. And if your first match isn't right, BetterHelp will let you switch therapists at any time. BetterHelp is now in-network with more than 125 health plans, with many copays as low as $15 for eligible members. And if you don't have eligible insurance or live outside the U.S., you can still get 20% off your first month. Sign up and get 20% off at betterhelp.com/Laurie. That's better H-E-L-P dot com slash Laurie.

• 19:44Laurie Santos?

  We've all done it. We sit through a presentation or review a task someone's just completed. And even though it's basically fine, the first words out of our mouths are critical or some suggestion for improvement. Adam Galinsky from Columbia Business School thinks this tragically misses what people actually need to hear from a leader. His first tip to better inspire those around you is to praise them more.

• 20:06Speaker 03

  Well, first of all, it's a fundamental human need to feel like we matter, we're important, we're respected, we're having an impact. It matters so deeply. The other day, I dropped off my son at school and then my second son off. And then I was walking down the stairs and I saw my first son running down a different set of stairs, just looking so focused. He was going to get paper towels. And but, you know, he took this so seriously, this little job, and you could, you could see it like, I'm the paper towel guy today, you know? You could imagine getting upstairs and the teacher saying, Asher, thank you so much for getting those paper towels so quickly. And that would then motivate him in the future. So we're really driven by praise. Dan Kahneman talks about that. We know that positive praise is more important, but we tend to focus on punishment because we're punished for praising and rewarded for punishing

• 20:51Speaker 03

  because of some of the cognitive biases that we have. But people want recognition. They want to be recognized. There's phrases like, I feel seen or I feel heard in what we do. And it matters so very much. Now, again, as a leader, your praise gets amplified.

• 21:06Laurie Santos?

  So my little, my little statement of, hey, good job, in, in somebody's head becomes like, good job! Like this huge thing in ways I don't even realize.

• 21:13Speaker 03

  Absolutely, right? You know, one of the things that I've discovered over time is we can start to think about the ways that we interact with people. Let me just give you a good example. Doctoral students, when they do their first presentation, it's at the, they're, say, it's called their second year paper. You know, it's their first big research presentation from the faculty. And historically, what I would do is I would do there and I'd scribble down notes and I would meet with them. And I'd say, oh, great job. And here's three things you could do to improvement. And then I realized that I was kind of crushing their spirit. Right? You know, they just had this amazing accomplishment. And there I was already telling them the things that they could improve. And so I actually just trained myself. I put in a rule, I will not criticize. Or offer constructive comments on a talk until the next day.

• 21:56Speaker 03

  So after the talk, I'll come to them and I'll have at least two things to say, wow, you really did this part great. And they did do those parts great. They're honest and they're genuine and they're important. And you can just see, you know, they got through this difficult thing. And then, you know, the next day I can say, oh, hey, as we think towards the future, here's three things that we can think about how to make your talk. And so part of it is putting in little checks for yourself, right? And I literally do that, you know, before a talk, I remind myself, this is their first talk. I'm going to only praise, I'm not going to criticize till later. And it can really, really make a huge difference. And so what I tell people to do is always be genuine, always be specific, but look for ways to compliment and to praise others. And I'll just give you one very quick example.

• 22:37Speaker 03

  I was doing a lecture for 50 CEOs and at 10:15, I gave them a call to action, I called it, to use the leader amplification effect for good. Pick three people with less power. Send them an email that says, you hit that presentation out of the park. I've just been thinking how great it was. Or, hey, I couldn't have completed that deal without your help. You know, I just wanted to say thank you. And at 10:29, just before the break, one of the CEOs raised his hand and he said, hey, I've already sent my three emails. I've already got three email responses back. Everyone was overjoyed and one person said they're taking their spouse to this restaurant they've always wanted to go to to celebrate. And I think there's two things to point about this example, which are so critical and so important.

• 23:18Speaker 03

  The first is a finding from my research, which is that powerful people tend to be impulse. So this guy couldn't even wait to the break to do it. But the second thing is it took them no time at all. Took them a couple of seconds to write these emails. He probably did all three of them in less than two minutes, right? And so the cost is so little, but the reward is so great.

• 23:37Laurie Santos?

  It sort of even shows a third thing, which is even when you told the story, the CEO was seeming kind of happy, like that, that his comment had such impact, right? And I think this is something we don't expect too, which is that there's kind of a happiness benefit to the person who's giving the praise, to the person who's expressing the gratitude, that we often forget too, not only you making the person that you're working with feel super inspired, but you yourself feel great. And when you don't express praise, you're kind of leaving that opportunity on the table when you could have in two minutes, kind of felt this sort of great feeling yourself and given somebody the praise that will help them be motivated and excited to do the work that they're going to do for weeks after that.

• 24:11Speaker 03

  And I think one thing I actually tell people, and this is a little ironic, is I tell people, send them by text or by email. And the reason why I do that is because that person who receives it gets to savor it. They can go back and relook at it. You know, if they're filling down, they can go back and look at that comment the CEO said. But the other reason why I do it is because of what you just pointed out, which is they're going to respond to you. If you just said, hey, great job on the presentation, you know, they're going to feel really good inside. If you said it just, you know, in interaction, but they probably wouldn't even know what to say to you, right? They might even feel awkward saying thank you. But if you send it by email, they're going to reply to you and say, thank you so much. You know, I'm so glad that you noticed, you know?

• 24:51Laurie Santos?

  So that's tip number one. We need to express more praise and gratitude to kind of boost our own inspiredness, but also to feel good ourselves. Tip number two is that we need to develop a vision, ideally one that's a little optimistic. Why is our vision so important?

• 25:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, I mentioned earlier the fundamental human need for meaning and understanding. And so a vision really allows us to make sense of our own behavior. I give this example in the book by one of your colleagues, Marsha Johnson, and a whole 1973 paper, where she gave people this paragraph to read that's, it doesn't, literally doesn't make any sense. You separate things, you don't want to do too many, and then you put them back into piles and you put them away. And I've done this, you know, with thousands and thousands of people across the globe and like, you know, only a handful can can solve it, you know, every now and then. But in in her other conditioner experiments, she gives them a title. And the title is doing the laundry. And as soon as you get the title, like, everything just makes so much sense.

• 25:47Speaker 03

  Like, I get it. Okay, you know, there's whites and darks and we might have to go to a laundromat, you know, and then we don't want to overstuff the machine, you know? And so without a vision, it's just almost impossible for us to make sense of our own behavior, but also to coordinate and interact with others. The simplest example I love to give is, you know, two people walk out of a meeting and one person thinks they're supposed to do the task quickly, and the other person thinks they're supposed to do it with the highest quality. And then they start working together and the person who's going quick is like, why are you so slow? And the person, you know, doing it with high quality is like, why are you so sloppy? And so without a vision, we don't know how to behave and act and make sense of the world. And therefore we get miscommunication, we get conflict. And so a vision is really orienting us in a way to help us make sense of our own behavior.

• 26:33Laurie Santos?

  And you have a really great hack for kind of enacting a vision and kind of keeping it top of mind. You've talked about the importance of catchphrases.

• 26:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:40Laurie Santos?

  And I know you even have one with your wife, which I love. I'm totally going to steal it to use with my husband. But why do catchphrases matter? And what's the one that you use with your wife?

• 26:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think catchphrases are ones that just help us make sense of the world. For any Ted Lasso fans out there, you probably remember that Ted Lasso says barbecue sauce before like important moments. Tin Cup Kevin Costner would say dollar bills before taking, you know, a shot. I'm a huge basketball fan and my wife is also a big basketball fan. She worked for men's basketball at University of Connecticut when they won their first national title. And there's an old coach named Jim Valvano, who had the top basketball moment in college sports when his team won nine consecutive do or die games, seven of which they were behind or tied in the final minute. Just this miraculous thing. And he tells a story about his dad. When he first made the tournament, his dad said, my bags are packed for you. I'm going to be there when you win the national title.

• 27:32Speaker 03

  He's like, his dad never leaves the house, you know, his dad thinks everything north of the George Washington Bridge is Canada, you know? And so this idea that he's going to travel was so meaningful. And so my wife and I started using that phrase with each other. My bags are packed for you. Like whenever we're going through a difficult time, just letting the other person know, I'm here for you. I support you no matter what happens. I have your back and I'm there for you.

• 27:52Laurie Santos?

  So we have our vision and we kind of keep it top of mind with catchphrases. But tip number three is that to become truly visionary, we need to connect not just with the kind of overarching goal, but also with our values. Why are our values so important?

• 28:05Speaker 03

  To say why our values are important is an interesting question. We know that values are one of the most impactful things in the world, and we still don't actually know the exact process by which these values matter us. In one study that Jeff Kohn did, he randomly assigned some at-risk students to reflect on their values for 15 minutes. And that predicted who graduated five years later, right? In a study I did, we randomly assigned people at a Swiss unemployment agency to reflect on their values. And two months later, they were twice as likely to have a job. And in fact, the values reflection was so powerful, we had to end the experiment and give everyone the values. Reflection task. And now we collected lots of variables, you know, to try to understand what was

• 28:47Speaker 03

  causing the effect and, and none of them could fully explain it. But I think it just gets back to who we are as humans, right? We are meaning makers. We want to connect to higher, larger purposes and our values are really our pathway to doing so. So one of the things that we make all of our students do at Columbia Business School, and I even do it myself, is we make them think about their values and to create a values hierarchy with their top value at the top and the other values kind of stem from that. And then we give them a laminated card with their values on it. I have my own card in my pocket right now. And, you know, to tell them to take it out and really think about that. For me, my top value is generosity. And for me, it's about

• 29:28Speaker 03

  being generous to other people materially, but also generous to other people emotionally, generous in helping think about the larger context in which people find themselves that might explain some aberrant behavior. And how can I just go through the world with a more generous frame of mind as my top value is sort of, you know, one of those examples. Another value that I have in there, which also connects me, it's kind of a catchphrase with my wife is the word kaizen. She lived in Japan for two years and the word kaizen means continued improvement. We can always be better tomorrow. We can always be a little bit more inspiring tomorrow than we can today.

• 30:04Laurie Santos?

  This is such a fabulous, practical suggestion because I feel like, you know, we can all like, you know, write this list and take it with us or even use our devices, right? You know, top page in the notes app is just like a list of your values. And I think this is the kind of thing we can do in any leadership situation, I think, especially in parenting, right? Imagine in that tough parenting moment, if you're kind of trying to figure out what to do next, you could just click over to your notes app and you see generosity, kaizen, or whatever your own personal values are. It could just be so powerful to kind of ground you and help you make the most inspired decision in that moment.

• 30:34Speaker 03

  Yeah. And I, and I think, you know, one of the things for me as a parent, my own father was just an amazing person, but he had a volcanic temper. It was not that frequent, but when it came out, it was sudden. Extreme and terrifying and even like penetrated my nightmares as a kid. And I found myself early on when my two year old, you know, when he was having a tantrum, I almost felt like I'd become my dad, this like, this volcanic rage was coming out. And I still remember like the first time it came out and my son just fell to the ground in like a fugue state of tears of like, just nothing like I'd ever seen. I real, again, the leader amplification effect, the parent amplification effect.

• 31:16Speaker 03

  I had to train myself, even when he's flying off the handle, to always take the more generous path, right? The more bigger picture path, the more visionary path, the more step back path that I can do, you know, be there as a container for his emotions without erupting myself.

• 31:33Laurie Santos?

  And so that story about your dad is a nice transition to tip number four. Another way we can become a little bit more visionary, and that's through engaging in a bit of time travel. How could time travel help?

• 31:42Speaker 03

  Yeah. So a couple of things about time travel. So one of the first things I studied in grad school, I still remember in 1993, when I was looking at grad schools, one of the things I was most interested in was counterfactual reflection, the idea about how we could think about our paths differently and how much that affected us. And the classic example of this is you go home a different way home from work and you get into an accident and you're like, oh, if I'd only gone the normal way home from work. But if you go to the normal way home from work, you don't think, oh, if only I could have gone to this exotic way home, right? So we go from unusual events back to usual events really quickly. But it's really about how we think about all the different paths that we went. There's a real world story that drove me to do some of this research that you're talking

• 32:27Speaker 03

  about, Lori, and that is I knew of a couple. She was a waitress at a restaurant and she met her husband at this restaurant, but she wasn't supposed to be working that evening and he wasn't supposed to be at that restaurant. He went to the wrong restaurant because I think there is two versions of the same restaurant in the city. And so neither of them were supposed to be there.

• 32:47Laurie Santos?

  It's awesome. It's like a Hallmark movie.

• 32:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. And, and you could just see them tell the story and like, it just added meaning and wonder, like it was faded, it was meant to be. So with Katie, with, with Laura Cray, my colleague at Berkeley, Phil Telok, Neil Rose, a bunch of other people, we did a whole line of research where we basically showed that when you think about the past that you didn't take. But might have, your own path seems for more meaningful and important. So here's this, you know, in one of the experiments we did, we said, "Think about the path you took to meet your current partner, your boyfriend, girlfriend, you know, spouse, whoever it is." Or we said, "Think about all the paths that you almost took that would have led you away from this partner." Then we later just asked people, "How important is this person to you?

• 33:34Speaker 03

  How significant are they? How meaningful is this relationship?" No, this is your significant other. But thinking of all the ways you might not have met them made that relationship more important, more meaningful, more significant, more impactful.

• 33:48Laurie Santos?

  And so it's just a way that anything in our life that we want to feel a little bit more inspired about, we can just think like, "Well, it might not have been." And then all of a sudden, it starts to seem even more precious.

• 33:57Speaker 03

  Right, you know, and you know, I moved to New York partly to find love, right? And to me, the counterfactual is, "What if I hadn't come to New York? I would have never met my wife." We met at a party. What if she hadn't gone to the party? What if I hadn't gone to the party? I can feel that sense of wonder rise, you know, inside of me whenever I do that. One of the ways that we can make our own life seem more meaningful, or as a leader, we can make our firm, our group's journey more meaningful, is think about the paths that we hadn't taken as one way of really helping us value the path we are on.

• 34:28Laurie Santos?

  It's time for a short break. But when the Happiness Lab returns, Adam will have more actionable tips for turning you into an inspiring leader. The Happiness Lab will be right back.

• 34:40Laurie Santos?

  There's nothing quite like having pieces in your closet you love and know you can count on for any occasion, except maybe giving someone else that same feeling. And I have to tell you, when it comes to my go-to gift this season, I think this might be the year of the hoodie, specifically Quince's Mongolian Cashmere Full Zip Hoodie, which I bought for myself and absolutely love. You know when you get something that's so comfortable, so soft, and so easy to throw on that you suddenly want to wear every day? That's where I am with this hoodie. And I started to think that instead of agonizing over what to get everyone on my holiday list, I might just buy them all one of these. I mean, who on my list wouldn't love a gift of perfect coziness? But it's not just hoodies. Quince makes elevated everyday essentials using premium materials like Mongolian cashmere

• 35:25Laurie Santos?

  and organic cotton. And if a cashmere hoodie isn't quite right for someone on your list, Quince has so much more. From leather bags and jewelry to cozy scarves, down outerwear, and even hotel-quality bedding. Give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was the Happiness Lab. It's the best way to support the show. What if I told you your skin and your brain are often in conversation? It's true. And that's why what you feel shows up on your skin. Think goosebumps, blushing, and even signs of stress.

• 36:08Laurie Santos?

  Tatcha harnesses the skin-mind connection to create skincare rituals that care for both skin and mind. At the heart of Tatcha's formulas is Hadasei-ry. Their proprietary complex that counteracts visible signs of stress on skin. It's made up of three Japanese ingredients that are double-fermented to harness 400-plus micronutrients. These micronutrients synchronize your skin's natural renewal cycles and boost resilience to daily stressors for visibly firmer, smoother, breathtaking skin. Visit tatcha.com and use code HAPPINESS for 15% off your first purchase. That's T-A-T-C-H-A dot com and use code HAPPINESS for 15% off.

• 36:50Laurie Santos?

  Life has a funny way of changing when we're not even looking. One day, your routine feels set, and the next, something shifts. A new job, a move, or maybe just a quiet realization that what used to work doesn't quite fit anymore. On this show, we talk a lot about how the little things in our daily lives shape our wellbeing, often more than the big flashy milestones. And that includes what we drive. Because when something you use every single day feels aligned with your life, it removes friction. It makes ordinary moments smoother, less stressful. That's where Cars.com comes in. They have over 2 million new and used cars and powerful filters that let you narrow

• 37:33Laurie Santos?

  your search by price, mileage, features, whatever actually matters to you. And their deal badges highlight when a listing is a great price, so you can feel confident you're making a smart choice. It's not just about buying a car. It's about choosing something that truly fits your routine and your next chapter. Start your search at Cars.com. Where to next? Remember that slightly weird living situation I told you about? Where my friend is living in my house in New Haven while I'm away on sabbatical? And how I end up staying in my own guest room whenever I visit? Well, I've upgraded that guest room with a Helix Midnight Luxe mattress and their Glacio cooling cover. That has turned out to be such a good investment in my sleep.

• 38:16Laurie Santos?

  I want good back support and I tend to get hot at night. So this mattress has been a huge upgrade from what I had before. It makes my nights back at home feel like I'm staying in a luxury hotel. And I'm not the only one who thinks so. My friend's daughter, who just stayed over, described the mattress as magnificent and hard to get out of. As we head into fall with cooler nights and busier schedules, it's a good reminder that a great night's sleep sets you up for a better day. Helix has over 20 mattress models, customized to your sleep needs. Just take their two-minute sleep quiz to find your fit. And Helix offers free US shipping and a happy with Helix guarantee too. So if your old mattress could use an upgrade, check out Helix. Your future, well-rested self will thank you.

• 38:58Laurie Santos?

  Go to helixsleep.com/happiness for 20% off site-wide. That's helixsleep.com/happiness for 20% off site-wide. Helixsleep.com/happiness.

• 39:13Laurie Santos?

  Emotional contagion. That's what happens when one happy, optimistic person completely transforms the mood of a room. It's also what happens when one negative person quickly burns everyone out. And that's why inspiration expert Adam Galinsky's next tip is for leaders to pay particular attention to the power of emotional contagion.

• 39:31Speaker 03

  If we just go back to the leader amplification effect, when you're on stage, people are really paying attention to you. So whatever you're expressing gets inside of them. And in general, emotions are contagious. Like, we know that yawns are contagious. But when you're a leader, your emotions, I like to say, go from being contagious to infectious. And so it really affects us more. So when you're a leader, your calmness becomes their calmness. But your anxiety can become their anxiety. Your courage can become their courage. And one of the areas where I've really looked at this is around the topic of passion. And this idea that it's really hard to inspire others when you're not inspired. And one of the ways that we can inspire others is through our passion.

• 40:15Speaker 03

  And I do a little exercise whenever I teach, and anyone can do it themselves, is just ask someone to tell you about their passion. And when you do that, I want you to listen, but also observe. What changes in their behavior when they start talking about their passion? And the thing that I've shown in my research, right, is that a number of behavioral things happen immediately. Their eyes light up. They smile, a big beaming smile. They move their hands more. They talk a little bit quicker, a little higher pitch. And they often kind of lean in as if telling you a secret. And I ask people, "Well, what happened to you when you listen to their passion?" And people start saying, "My eyes got wide. I started to smile. I leaned in."

• 40:59Speaker 03

  And so we start reciprocating the behavioral things, but start feeling that passion percolate inside of us. Now, what I love about this little, simple exercise, it also shows us how tied passion and authenticity are. Notice that your eyes, your mouth, your voice, your hands, all those things are being changed simultaneously. And spontaneously. And if you were to try to do that, say, okay, I'm going to pretend I'm passionate. I'm going to make my eyes big. Oh, wait, now I gotta smile.

• 41:27Laurie Santos?

  Doesn't work. Doesn't work as well.

• 41:28Speaker 03

  And so I think there's this link between passion, authenticity, and because of that, it also increases that infectiousness of passion.

• 41:36Laurie Santos?

  And the idea that we kind of matter and our authenticity matters in this inspiration equation gets to top insight number six, which is that to be inspiring, it's not enough to be superhuman. We really kind of need to be human. Like, the human part is really important. I think this is something that leaders often get wrong, that they need to be a little bit more vulnerable. Why is vulnerability so inspiring?

• 41:57Speaker 03

  Part of it, when we're super, we seem out of reach. And so if we can find ways to humanize ourselves, make ourselves more vulnerable, then people can connect with us more. I was quoted recently in the New York Times talking about Hillary Clinton in 2008, you know, when she had lost in Iowa. And then, you know, she kind of teared up before New Hampshire and then she, you know, came back and won New Hampshire. And then later she made herself even more human by taking whiskey shots at a bar in Pennsylvania. The reason why the New York Times called me is because they're like, what did you think of Donald Trump going to McDonald's? And I said, it was brilliant. Here's a person who flies in his own private jet, but seeing him doing the same activities that an everyday, average person does, humanized him.

• 42:40Speaker 03

  And I said, you know, there's a chance he's going to win the election because of that, you know, because he just seems more relatable in that way. And so by exposing our own vulnerabilities, we help people understand that not everyone's perfect. But we also often give clues and pathways to how we might overcome our own challenges and obstacles in that way. I like to tell people the story of myself, that I came close to getting kicked out of grad school. You know, getting a second year, there's three categories. There's thumbs up, thumbs down, you're screwed, you're not going to make it. Or the level hand is, we don't know which way it's going to go. And I felt very lucky because they told me, here's the three things you have to do in order to stay in the program. And so because I got very clear vision of what I had to do, I was, I was able to do those things

• 43:25Speaker 03

  and stay in the program. But it just lets people know, like, look, first year is going to be tough. And sometimes, you know, you're going to struggle. And, and the question is, how do you find the guidance that you need and tap into the resources that you have to be successful?

• 43:38Laurie Santos?

  I mean, that must be huge for your own students to hear like, oh, my gosh, Adam, who has this new book and has done all this amazing research, he almost got kicked out of the program, right? You could see exactly why that is an inspiring moment for your students. Because if they're facing their own moments of failure and securities, they could just kind of brush those aside because you've been vulnerable enough to share, hey, I went through it, too.

• 43:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:58Laurie Santos?

  And so sometimes we need to be a little bit more vulnerable. But as a leader, I also know that sometimes you've got to remind yourself that you're a little bit super. Like, you need to find moments where you kind of feel powerful and in control. And that gets to tip number seven. You also remind leaders that to be inspiring, it's helpful to kind of get a sense of that sense of power and control. And you have a really great practical exercise we can use to do this. What's that?

• 44:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, you know, the thing that I've done the most research on is thinking about a time when you were powerful. You know, I ask people to write out a reflection. And we've shown that this task of thinking about time you're powerful has affected dozens of different types of behaviors in a variety of different ways. But the way that I think about it is that when we think about the ways that we're super, they allow us to go out and be more super. And one of the things that I think that we want to tap into is our successful moments in life and our own experience when we were our best self. We can then leverage that and allow us to be our best self in the next moment. You know, I tell people, you can actually even calibrate this even more. The next time you have to do an important presentation, think about time you gave a great presentation. The next time you have to write something,

• 45:05Speaker 03

  think about time when you wrote something really well. That can really allow us to tap into the task-specific inspiration that we need to be successful.

• 45:14Laurie Santos?

  And you found that this power recall process is like, super effective in all kinds of different contexts. Like, tell me some of the contexts in which you see this working, because it's really broad.

• 45:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, you know, and, you know, you used the word earlier, which I think is really important optimism, you know, about being sort of optimistic. So, you know, one of the things we've shown is that makes people optimistic. But, you know, we've shown, for example, in one study we did, we had people come in and we said, we're going to have you write a letter for a job. So you're going to try to get this job. Before you do that, we're going to give you a chance just to get some practice writing. And that's when we used our Or manipulation where he told half the people, think about time when you had power and the other half were told, think about time when you, when you lack power. And then we had them apply for a job, put their application in sealed envelope. And then we, we had other people rated, you know, they didn't know anything about the power reflection task at all. And we just had them rate, would you hire this person? And the people that have been randomly assigned to

• 46:09Speaker 03

  get this, you know, power reflection, they were more likely to get the job. And the single thing that seemed to matter the most was people just expressed more confidence. They just came across as more confident in their letters. We showed that when we randomly assigned people to think about time when they had power in a negotiation and they go into that negotiation, their voice is more steady, more dynamic. They're also more likely to make the first offer in the negotiation. And we know from research that making the first offer on average leads to better outcomes. We've shown it makes people more visionary. Pam Smith has done this research showing that people see the big picture when they think about timing their power. And then finally, some researchers in Europe, they asked people to do public presentations, but why they did them, they

• 46:51Speaker 03

  measured their physiological arousal levels. And they found that people had done the power recall were more calm and less physiologically aroused when they did that. So again, I think the key thing is that it's tapping into our own lived experiences and allowing us to leverage those experiences.

• 47:08Laurie Santos?

  And so tip eight is going to switch gears a little bit. It's not kind of the things you do to yourself, but the things you do in interaction with somebody that you're trying to inspire. And tip number eight is that you can be a bit more inspiring by giving more choices. Why are choices so inspired?

• 47:22Speaker 03

  No one likes to be told what to do. Right? We don't like to be treated like objects. We don't like to feel pressured. We don't like to be forced. And so one of the things that I've shown in my research is that when we offer people options, they see us as more concerned with their wellbeing. They see us as wanting us to get the right outcome for ourselves. So in negotiations, we've shown, for example, that car salesman says, I can offer you this car for $25,000 and a five year warranty, or $24,000 and a three year warranty. Now, most of you can quickly calculate that for the car salesperson, one year warranty is worth $500 to them. But what you're saying is, I don't know how much warranty is worth to you, so I'm going to let you make that choice. And we've shown a

• 48:07Speaker 03

  couple of things in our research that are really, really important. The first is that we could actually be much more ambitious. Or aggressive when we offer choices because people see us as having their best interest into account. The second thing that was shown is that when we make these sort of ambitious offers, we get a better outcome for ourselves, but the other side often doesn't get a worse outcome. So it expands the pie. And the thing that most excites me about this research is that it works for everyone. It works for men and women. It works for people who have more power and less power in the negotiation. Offering choices just solves the problem. Now, I started doing this research back in

• 48:49Speaker 03

  the, in the nineties on, on choices and negotiations. But in the mid 2000s, I saw it in practice as a parent. I wasn't a parent yet, but my twin brother was a parent and his daughter was not getting dressed and she was fighting everything. And talking to my sister-in-law, you know, we said, what if we start giving choices? And so she'd do that. She'd just hold up two pair of pants. Okay, Fiona, which pair of pants? Okay, that one. Okay, Fiona, which shirt? And so all of a sudden, instead of fighting, she was making choices. And I saw just how valuable it is. Anytime that you can take a demand and turn it into a choice, you're going to be far better off. You're going to get a better outcome. They're going to be happier. There's going to be fewer transaction costs. There's going to be less frustration. Everyone's going to be better off.

• 49:34Laurie Santos?

  And you think about that whenever you're in a position of having less power, right? When people give you choices, you just feel like you have some agency, like you can kind of make the decision for yourself. And that kind of gets to why tip number nine is so powerful. You've argued that to be more inspiring, we need to be more credit sharing as leaders. Explain some of the unexpected benefits of credit sharing, even to the leader.

• 49:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, there is, you know, a survey that came out a few years ago that asked people, what's the most infuriating thing that happens at work? And, and one of the things that was, it might've been top of the list, I can't remember, or near the top of the list, was other people stealing credit from you, other people taking ownership over your idea. You know, it just infuriates us, right? And it goes back to that fundamental human need of wanting to be recognized and feel respected and to have the status. And two things we've shown in our research, which I think are really important. The first is that when we're feeling insecure, Or not inspired ourselves, it warps our brain and twists it into thinking that, oh my God, if I share credit with others, I'm going to lose status myself.

• 50:35Speaker 03

  And so we've shown that when we're feeling insecure, we're less likely to share credit with others because we see now status is zero sum. But what we've shown in our research is that when you actually share credit with others, you actually get a status boost. So if I was somewhere and I was like, people said how much they love my book. And I said, I couldn't have produced such a great book without my amazing research assistant, Chloe. Now Chloe's going to be raised in status, right? Cause I've just said how amazing she is, but so will I. I get a boost in status because I credited her. People like people that share credit, right? They like generous individuals who acknowledge other people. And we've tried to push this to the extreme. We said, okay, it's an entrepreneurial situation.

• 51:20Speaker 03

  Two people, there's two finalists and they each have to make a final little speech. And we have one of the people either say, you know, I couldn't have done it without all the things that I did, or they said, you know, I couldn't have done it. I also want to thank my competitor who also helped me, gave me some great advice. Now you could say, oh my God, you've just raised the status of your competitor. They're going to get picked to win their award, but you still are better off by doing that you're still more likely to win. Now the effect is much smaller than in other situations, but even when we share credit with the people we're competing with the most, we still get a status boost.

• 51:59Laurie Santos?

  And we can use that status boost in good ways, especially if you find ways to learn from the people maybe that we're competing with, or maybe especially as a leader that are kind of working under us. And this gets to final tip, number 10, which is that to really be an inspiring leader, we should seek out some downward learning. What do you mean by downward learning?

• 52:15Speaker 03

  So one of the things that I've become really fascinated with is what makes a good mentor, right? You know, that's the third factor of being inspiring person. It's like how we interact with others, but what does it mean to really mentor someone? And you know, there are a number of characteristics that are essential. One is that we really take the perspective of the other person. We really engage with them. We think deeply about their situation, just really getting inside their head, but looking at the world from their perspective, what they need and what they want. And one of the things that we found in our research is that people are better mentors when they recognize that they can learn incredibly valuable insights, even from people who have less power or status than they do.

• 53:00Speaker 03

  And so we showed in our research that downward learners, people who say, I can learn a lot from people who are below me in the hierarchy, they tend to be better mentors. But in my favorite experiment that we did in this project, so we know we did a lot of correlational studies that's showing downward learning people tend to be better mentors. But in one study, we actually took people who are going to be in mentor roles. And in half of them, we said, think about a time recently when you learned something valuable from someone below you in the hierarchy. And then later, we put them in a position where they were going to have to serve as a mentor for someone. And we asked the mentees about their experience. And we found that when they'd been randomly assigned to be with one of these downward learning reflections, people who had just engaged in this reflection, they rated them as more engaged, but also more empathic.

• 53:45Speaker 03

  And so it was the combination of that engagement and empathy that made them feel like they got a lot more benefit out of that interaction.

• 53:53Laurie Santos?

  So just that curiosity to learn from the people that see us as leaders, that winds up making us seem more empathic and ends up helping the person that, you know, we're trying to help kind of succeed in whatever they're doing.

• 54:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I'll tell you one quick story, which I really love from my life. I got to spend, I wrote the book proposal in Hawaii. I spent a year in Hawaii with my family. And I was talking to someone on the phone because we had been having a problem with, birds would fly into the house and then get trapped and poop everywhere. And my friend had suggested a couple of weeks earlier, buy these rubber snakes, put them out, you know, in front of the doorway, and then the birds will be afraid and they will come in. And it didn't do anything. Literally, the birds would just step over this, you know, rubber snake. And so I was telling my friend, it didn't work. And it was six in the morning. My son had just woken up. He'd crawled into my lap. He heard me tell the story and he said, oh, I know why, Dad. And I was like, why? He's like, there's no snakes in Hawaii. We learned that in preschool. So this four-year-old, he had learned something that I didn't know,

• 54:48Speaker 03

  you know, because he was going to school in Hawaii. And it's just a good example, like he had different knowledge than I did. And he had different experiences and was able to bring those experience and knowledge to bear. And then realized that we'd have to come up with a different strategy to keep the birds out of our house.

• 55:02Laurie Santos?

  I mean, you've been putting all these strategies to become more inspiring into effect in your own life. I'm sure that's made you a more inspired leader, but has it also made you a little bit happier, too?

• 55:11Speaker 03

  Definitely. You know, I think, you know, you mentioned earlier, the example, the CEO who got those effusive emails back. Thank you so much for the praise and the gratitude. And you said that made that CEO probably happier. And I have to say, that was such an amazing epiphany for me because I hadn't thought about it in that way. You know, I use the word spreading the seeds of inspiration, right? So he spread the seeds, but then he got some back from doing that. And I think that when we know that we've had a positive impact on people's lives, it makes us happier. But, you know, one of the things that I think that I've most learned from all of my research, and it's something I've brought up like three or four different times, but the power of reflection, reflecting on your values,

• 55:53Speaker 03

  reflecting on times when you had power, were confident, were successful. We talked about reflecting on what you've learned from people below you, reflecting on your passions, all of these things. We are the examined life. You know, there's a famous phrase, right? You know, it's the examined life worth living. But I think the reflected life is really the true path towards making yourself and other people happier because it's through those reflections or the right types of reflections that we can put ourselves into a frame of mind that allows us to be more inspiring and then to receive more inspiration back to us.

• 56:29Laurie Santos?

  So we've all through all these great ideas that we can put into effect to become more inspiring leaders. But, you know, as someone who's been a leader myself, I know that like, you kind of screw up sometimes without realizing you can accidentally switch into that kind of not so inspiring or maybe defeating sort of role. Any strategies for leaders to pick themselves up and maybe do a do-over when things don't go so well in a leadership role?

• 56:51Speaker 03

  Yeah. First of all, I want to just reemphasize the point you just made, which is so important, which is It's really hard. We all screw up. My wife loves to throw my research back in my face and tell me when I've been particularly infuriating. My kids are very good at telling me when I'm not being the most inspiring person. And I think, again, reflection really helps, right? To think about what was going on in that situation that made me lose the big picture? Or maybe not be as courageous I could have been, or been too aggressive in a way that hurt someone's feelings? And so I think that's one thing. I really believe in the power of apologies as an incredible way of helping people understand.

• 57:31Speaker 03

  And I think the single most important thing that we can do in apologies, besides take responsibility, which is like the core of it, is tell the person what we're going to do differently the next time. Make a commitment to the future. And I think that is where you're saying, look, I screwed up, but that's just empty water without the promise of the future. So I think that that's one of the things that I really think about. And part of what I tell people is, how can you be more inspiring more of the time? I like using a little phrase from the Bible, reap what you sow. Reap what you sow comes from agriculture, right? Like we tend our crops and we reap what we sow. But it has two meanings that I think are really important. The first is that what we do today impacts the future.

• 58:16Speaker 03

  And second thing, what we do today comes back to us in the same form. So if we're generous, we're going to get generosity back. But if we're mean spirited, we're going to get mean spiritness back to us. And so my reap is not spelled R E A P, it's spelled R E I P. And R E I P is an acronym and R stands for reflections. So again, we talked about the power of reflecting on our own experiences, but also thinking about when weren't we inspiring? When we're infuriating, the E is emulate. I've asked people all over the world to think about a leader that inspired them. The next step is how could you emulate that person? And then can you take those reflections and those emulations and turn them into an intention, a commitment to the future? And that comes back to the apology thing I was just talking about.

• 59:01Speaker 03

  And then finally, how do you practice that the next day and turn that into a daily practice? And one of the things that I've found in my research and my own personal life is that if we can be a little bit more inspiring tomorrow, it actually gives us the skills, also the motivation to be a little bit more inspiring the next time. So every time I feel that volcanic rage rise up inside of me, but I stop it.

• 59:26Speaker 03

  I feel so good about myself that it increases the probability that I'm going to be that better father the next day. And so the practice really becomes important. We can build off that practice and reflect on building off that practice for the future.

• 59:40Laurie Santos?

  I've long wanted to inspire those around me, but I'm only now just waking up to the power I have as a leader. If you're like me, then I highly recommend Adam's new book, Inspire: The Universal Path for Leading Yourself and Others. But let's quickly go over some of the ideas he's just shared. Tip number one, park the criticism and find more praise, especially in writing. A tiny investment in your time can make you and the person you praise feel great. Tip number two is to have a vision and share it. We all want to find meaning. If you can vividly explain why you're asking someone to do something, then they'll do it more effectively and more cheerfully. The third tip is to remember that your personal values are your guide. If you value honesty, then ask yourself, what would an honest leader do now?

• 1:00:25Laurie Santos?

  If it's empathy, then how can I be the most empathic boss? Tip number four is to marvel at where you're at right now. Appreciate all the decisions, hard work, and strokes of luck that built your business or your family. Tip number five, practice positive emotional contagion. Remember that a leader's fear or their enthusiasm will have a profound impact on those looking for inspiration. Tip number six is that you don't need to be superhuman to be a good leader. You can just be human. Letting people know you're vulnerable will give them the confidence they need to take their own risks. But don't overdo the self-criticism, since tip number seven is to remember your successes. Recalling your past triumphs can help you deal with new challenges on the horizon. Tip number eight is to give choices to those you lead.

• 1:01:11Laurie Santos?

  No one likes to feel boxed in, so give options rather than orders. Tip number nine, share the credit. We all want to be recognized, but we truly succeed when we share the laurels with our teams and even our rivals. Adam's final tip is to show humility. The most inspiring leaders listen to the most inexperienced voices. Being open to downward learning can make you more productive than you expect. We've still got one more show in this how-to season. And while I've loved making all of these episodes, I've saved something very special for last. I'm going to let you in on the science of how to find your purpose. That's all next time on the Happiness Lab with me, Dr. Laurie Santos.

• 1:01:59Laurie Santos?

  The Happiness Lab is proudly sponsored by Amica Insurance. You know what they say, "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." So go with Amica and get coverage from a mutual insurer that's built for their customers, one that looks after what's important to you together. Auto, home, life, and more. Amica helps you protect what matters most. Visit amica.com and get a quote today.

• 1:02:26Laurie Santos?

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• 1:03:02Speaker 05

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• 1:03:47Speaker 05

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• 1:04:00Speaker 05

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• 1:04:02Laurie Santos?

  Flu season is here, and it's a great time to take a simple step to help protect yourself and your family. That's why I'm headed to CVS Pharmacy to get my flu shot. And honestly, scheduling my appointment was a breeze. With CVS, you can schedule appointments for up to four family members at once through CVS.com/flu or the CVS Health app, so you can get it done in one go. Did you know that flu shots are free with most insurance plans? Visit your local CVS Pharmacy for your flu shot and get a $5 off $20 coupon with any vaccine. Schedule today at CVS.com/flu. Flu shots are no cost with most insurance. Eligibility varies by patient and insurance plan.

• 1:04:43Laurie Santos?

  Coupon offer not available in select states and is subject to availability. Restrictions apply. Visit CVS.com/flu for details. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.