How can you be way happier, less depressed, have less anxiety and fear? 

Let's talk about this book, "The Happiness Advantage". It's pretty interesting.

"The Happiness Advantage" is an international best seller and talks about the seven principles of positive psychology that fuel success and performance at work. 

What are the seven? The happiness advantage number one, the fulcrum and the lever number two, the tetris effect number three, falling up number four, the zorro cycle number five. Number six, the 20 second rule, and number seven, social investment. 

It's a good book. Just finished doing my book of the day, and I thought I'd share it with you. I'll just give you a few little points, not going to go through the whole book.

Find something to look forward to. So, I'm going to give you three tips that I thought were interesting in this book. If you've been in a funk, if life's been hard, if you've been feeling down and out, I feel for you. 

I've been there. Let's talk about it. Let's get three good tips from this book. I think he went to Harvard, he's an interesting guy. He did a Ted Talk.

Number one, find something to look forward to. One study found that people who had just thought about watching their favorite movie actually raised their endorphin levels by 27%. 

So, endorphin levels are kind of happiness drugs that your brain releases and makes you feel good; lowers stress, increases happiness. What are you looking forward to? Put some things on the calendar. 

I have found in life every night you should do something fu

n, maybe not seven days a week but six days a week minimum. You should have something to look forward to. "Oh I'll go see a movie." "Oh, I'll go out Salsa Dancing." Whatever your thing is, something simple, it doesn't have to be expensive. 

And there is real science that you thinking throughout the day of that end reward, right there makes you, releases 27% more endorphins. Which maybe translates into 27% happier.

The second thing, this is fascinating. Spend money, number two, but not on stuff. The book says, "Contrary to the popular saying, money can buy happiness. But, only if it's used to do things, as opposed to simply have things." 

Where you go wrong with money, is if you just buy more watches and more material possessions, shoes, televisions, expensive watches. That has not been shown scientifically to get you out from your depression, get you happier. 

But here is what research does show: "Researchers interviewed more than 150 people about their recent purchases. They found that money spent on activities such as concerts, or taking friends out to dinner brought far more pleasure than material purchases." 

So, they call this 'pro-social spending.' This is actually spending money on other people. Like I said, taking someone out to dinner. In one experiment 46 students were given $20 to spend. 

The ones who were told to spend the money on other people were happier at the end of the day than those who just spent it on themselves. What are your spending habits? They say draw a column, which ones are pro-social, which aren't.

Third tip for you here, for today. Exercise a signature strength. And I totally agree. I have struggled with depression a little bit when I was younger. As I've gotten older, I have other problems. But, one of the tools that I learned from my mentors that has helped me overcome that, is doing daily the things that I'm good at. 

Ronaldo likes playing soccer. He's probably not going to be depressed a lot. Michael Jordan liked basketball, he's probably not depressed a lot

 when he's doing that signature strength. 

Now, if you're not a pro-athlete, maybe it's a little more challenging. But, not really. If you're good at reading, if you're good at organizing, if you're good at comedy, if you're good at public speaking, make sure you switch jobs and careers.

Or at the minimum, if you're in a job that doesn't allow you to do your signature strength, make time. Ideally, switch careers. Some people switch careers too easily, some people are too stubborn. Find the happy medium. 

But, whatever you do, the majority of your life should be spent in your signature strength.

So, that's three points. I'm going to give you one bonus one here that I thought was fascinating that I remember from a little bit later in the book. And I've always been a big believer in this. Most people are anticipating the day they'll be happy. "Oh, if I do this, that, and the other thing." It's a horrible habit, horrible. "Focus on momentary happiness." Now, there's two types of happiness, this is a long conversation. You don't only want momentary happiness. 

You sometimes have to postpone present pleasure as an investor to get something back later. I understand that. But, there's also the other end of the spectrum, that if you're not liking most of your life, make some big changes.

If you like most of your life, but there's a few little things, then you make little changes. People always ask me, "How do you know?" 

Simple, if everything is fucked then you have to make huge changes, usually. There's exceptions. If everything is pretty good, just one thing gets on your nerves, you've probably just got to change one maybe two things.

But, get to that place where depression is diminishing even if you have to do something dramatic, even if you have to quit a job, even if you have to move out from somebody you're living with, even if you have to spend less time with a family member. You can't sacrifice your happiness overall unless you're investing. 

So, let's say, for example you go to the gym and you're not that happy to be lifting weights, because it hurts. Well, that's temporary pleasure

 that has a pay off very quickly. And your body gets healthier. That kind of pain, you can keep around, because there's a gain to it. There's the pain and then the gain. But, a lot of us, and I've done this before. You get to a place where there's pain, but there's no gain. It's just pure pain.

Which of these three tips your going to start implementing and if you need to read over it again, go ahead. And maybe a tip you found worked well for you to increase your happiness and lower your depression. All right? Talk to you soon. Hope you feel better. Hope life is going better for you. Doing a lot of stuff, hopefully to encourage you, the things that are encouraging me, and try to pass it on. So, hang in there. Life will get better.

Stay Strong,

Tai