 Good evening, Big Red One and Fort Riley, Kansas families. I'm Sergeant Major Stephanie Rodriguez, and on behalf of Major General Sims and Command Sergeant Major Mullenachs, I'd like to thank everybody for attending our first in a many series event with guest speakers, featuring today Mia Austin. So without further ado, in order to kick this event off, I'd like to introduce you to our Big Red One Euro Family Lead, Chaplain Key. Thank you so much, Sergeant Major Rodriguez, and thank you all of you for coming out this afternoon. We are excited about our first event, our first speaker to really continue to keep the momentum moving in a positive direction. We have Ms. Mia Austin with us this evening. Let's give her a hand clap right now. Before she comes forward, I just want to say a few things about her as I kind of went through her bio and it's so exciting to have people come from kind of outside of our gate to come be a part of this year celebration of all of our families here at Fort Riley. Ms. Mia Austin is a motivational speaker and executive coach. She's been known to have high energy, humor, and her ability to captivate audiences is beyond reproach. She speaks on a variety of topics to include diversity, leadership, change management, team building, happiness, and creating a positive mindset. She has been public speaking, a keynote speaker for over 25 years, so she comes with a great deal of experience. A licensed executive advisor with a culture index, a certified life coach in time management. She studied at Washburn University and graduated with a business and paralegal degree. And she believes that the most important asset to any business, any organization, any institution are the people who make up that business, that institution, and that organization. She's worked with a number of companies to include Alpha, Omega, Epsilon National Conference, the Healthcare Financial Management Association, Kansas 4-H Youth Leadership Conference, St. Luke Healthcare System, and the University of Kansas Hospital. So she comes with a great deal of experience, a great deal of knowledge. We're excited to have her here. So if you will, let's put our hands together and give Ms. Mia Austin another big red one welcome. Please. So I think I'm gonna have to get a pastor to come and introduce me every time. That was the best. No one like a pastor to introduce you. Thank you so much for being here today. How are you? I'll ask again, how are you? I'm a motivational speaker. You're not gonna get to just sit there. No, you're not. So this slide got a little messed up in transition somehow, but I want you to see. So instead of a raise, I'm giving you a Prozac. That seems to be how we deal with difficulty, loss, depression today in society, lots of medications out there, but I'm here today to give you some tips on how you can become happier. Yes, even you. So why is this so important? Well, first of all, I want you to recognize that happiness is actually the key to success. So the happier you are, the more successful you will be. Also, I want you to get some simple tools. You're all different. So one thing I say might sync up with you and something else might sync up with someone else. So I'm gonna give you lots of different ways that you can increase your level of happiness. And then I want you to choose some happiness activities that actually fit you and recognize how important happiness is. So how many of you have seen a motivational speaker and when you were done, you were so motivated that you couldn't do anything that they talked about? Have you ever felt that way? It was just so good. And somebody will say, was it good? And you'll say, oh, it was so good. And they'll say, well, what did you learn? Well, I mean, I don't, there was just a lot of good stuff. So today you're not here to take notes. You're here to just sit back in your seats at the end of what may have been a long week for you. And just rest for a minute. And I don't want you to go to sleep. Not gonna let you go to sleep, but I want you to just sit and breathe. And if there's something that I say today that really resonates with you, that's the one thing I want you to take out of here today. They're gonna have a copy in my PowerPoint. You can go back and look at it later. But right now, just be present. Just when you hear something that you think fits you or it speaks to you, that you hold onto that one thing and that you can go on later and tell someone the one thing that you heard today that made a difference in your life. Are we on the same page? Okay, all right. So first of all, I want you to know that happiness spreads kind of like weeds. If you're around somebody who's happy, it's really hard to be pissy. And if you're around a lot of happy people and you're the odd duck, it makes it even more awkward for that one Debbie Downer. And so you can't change other people. I don't want you to look at all these tools and think this is what I need to tell my wife. This is what I need to tell my husband or my beloved. This is what I need my kids to hear. I need my kids to hear this. No, you can't change anybody but you. But it does have a trickle down effect. It spreads just like dandelions. Did you see that? Oh my gosh, where did you have your haircut? So, but I do want you to know some of the resources that I used in crafting this. One of my favorite books is The Happiness Advantage. The How of Happiness Flourish. Atomic Habits is a newer book and that's really, really good. So those are my resources and there is a bibliography at the end if you get the deck and you'd like to see more. I didn't just make this stuff up. I want you to know that. So you've been told your whole life that if you will just work hard, you will be successful. Get good grades. Do the work, right? Get up early. Go to bed late. Do the work and you'll be successful. Any of you heard that? Maybe it's that, you know, you get the house, the dog, the 2.3 kids, the white picket fence, the motorcycle, the shoes, whatever it is that means success to you and then you'll be happy and we're always chasing it, right? Well, that's not true. It's not true at all. Actually, happiness creates success. The happier you are, the more successful you're going to be and right now only about 48% of Americans say that they're happy at their jobs and their lives and depression rates are 10 times higher than they were in 1960 and I'm sure you guys know all about that. So, here's where we are. The average onset of depression 50 years ago was age 29. Does anybody want to take a guess at what it is today? What do you think it is today? Would you say 16? Anybody else? 13, 12, 18, okay. Got an outlier there. It's 14. You're really close. 14, 14 years old. Wow. And that's because our society has changed so much and we have so much information available to us and so much of it is good and so much of it we can learn from but there's so much and so much of it is negative and whether you like it or not, it's being thrown at you. It flashes by you on the TV. It flashes by your phone and don't think that that doesn't affect you. I don't care if you're not spending late nights scrolling through stuff. You're still seeing stuff that's overwhelming, that makes you judge yourself. And a lot of times what's happening is you're judging your life with somebody else's highlight reel. And their highlight reel is always gonna look really appealing but you don't know what's really going on. And so we should all over ourselves. I should be, I shouldn't be, my kids should be, they shouldn't be, my boss should be, right? And that helps create this cycle where we just don't feel our best, where we just don't experience real joy every day. That's the highway that we're on. Pick a lane because that seems to be the answer for everything these days, right? Medication. So the field of positive psychology came from this idea that when they began to understand the psyche and they looked into what caused depression, they would see a scatterplot like that and there was always this one or two little outlier dots. But they ignored the dots, they kinda threw that out and they were basically focused on how can we cure depression? How can we get you back to where you're just not miserable? Not happy, but just not miserable anymore. And see that little dot? That little dot is one really happy little person. They never investigated the outlier until the field of positive psychology came into being. And it hasn't been around for that long but they realized that you can eliminate depression without actually making someone happy. So how do we achieve the outlier? How do you become that happy little dot? Well, first I want you to know that change is possible. Change is possible and we know that because there's a lot of science that backs that. One of the experiments they did was with monkeys and they put them into a cage where they had access to food in pellet form and they had to pull the pellet through a space that was a little too small. So the monkey had to manipulate the pellet to get it into the cage and to eat it. And at the initial rate that they started, the monkeys would have starved to death. But over time they adapted and they figured out how to quickly get these pellets through so they could eat them. And what they found out was that the area of the brain in the monkey used for that specific task actually grew. So I'm not talking about a monkey learning something. I'm not talking about figuring out how to do something differently or adapt. I'm talking about the power of your brain to actually change, to physically change based on what you're doing. If you're my age, you used to see the commercials that said, here's your brain and here's your brain on drugs. That was a big campaign in the 70s. And now there's your brain on happiness. Do you see that lit up brain right up there? That's what a brain of a happy person looks like. What do you think comes from having your brain lit up like that? Can you think more clearly? Can you figure out difficult problems more easily? Yes, you can. Do you become more artistic or creative? Yes, you do. All of those things come from happiness. That lights up your brain. It increases your ability to perform almost everything. It increases the dopamine and serotonin in your brain. Now, there's a lot of people who are selling stuff out on the street to increase dopamine and serotonin. And who knew you could get it just by getting happier, right? And it activates the learning centers in your brain so you can retain information better. The best thing to do before a test is not to cram. It's to watch one of those little cute kitten videos that lights up your brain and then you're gonna have better recall. And you think that's silly, but it's not. And did you know that when you're happy, you actually have better peripheral vision? Wow, that's a physical attribute. My son raced cars. He started when he was eight years old in a go-kart and he worked his way all the way up into NASCAR and IndyCar. And one of the experiments that I did with my son way back in the days when he was dirt track racing, in a dirt car, you don't have a radio. There's nobody telling you where the other cars are. And you're strapped in such that you really can't turn your head a whole lot from side to side. So you kind of had to have this sixth sense to know where you were in relationship to other people. And peripheral vision was very, very important. So I did this little experiment, completely unscientific, okay? But I did an experiment where I showed my son one of those cute little kitten videos, you know the one where the kitten falls off from a really high place and lands on the dog's back and then the dog carries the kitten around and it's just oh, the cutest thing. Something like that, something small and simple. I didn't have any kind of exchange with him except for my normal exchange of what I said to him. Every time I strapped him in a raced car, which was go fast, have fun, I love you. So I began to realize that when I showed him these videos right before he went out and raced, his performance was better. Not only that, but he was more animated when he came back in from that race. And he'd say, hey, did you see how I pulled that off and I slid around that guy and I knew he was right behind me. And then when I didn't show him the video, he was far less animated and his results were not quite as stellar. That was the power of happiness. Think about that for a second. What did I do? I showed my kid a two minute or less video, a silly kitten video, but what happened to his brain? Just for a few minutes, he physically had a smile on his face which creates a chemical reaction in your brain. He had a moment of happiness just enough that it boosted his performance. Wow, that's amazing. Now, we have to get clear first about what the definition of happiness is, okay? I don't know about you. I can only speak for myself, okay? But I don't care what makes you happy or what you think happiness is. I just know that if you can increase your happiness, your life will change. Now, all of us have a baseline. This is a survey that you can take. The information again will be in the PowerPoint for you. I suggest that you take it three times because we want to make sure we're measuring your average and if you took this on a particularly high or low day, the first time that might lessen the accuracy of the results. So you do this three times and kind of get your baseline. But here's the good news. I don't care what your baseline is. I don't care if you walk around being obnoxious like me smiling all the time and saying, hi, how are you? What are you doing? It's great to see you again. One of those really obnoxious happy people or if you're the person who walks around quietly, sullen, I don't care. You can increase your level of happiness no matter what your starting point is. That's the good news today. So what's that about? Well, 50% of your happiness set point is genetic. It's just like your hair, your eyes, all that other good stuff. It comes from your genetics. 10% of it is outside circumstances. So yes, when you get the new Harley, you're gonna be really happy for a little while. When you move into the house, when the kids finally move out, when the baby finally comes, whatever it is, there's always something isn't there. It's always when. Stop and think about that for a second. That when is only 10%. You have control of the other 40%. That's the pocket that we're gonna be living in today. That 40% that you have control over. The other thing about happiness is it really is a habit. Some of the studies say 80% of the time you're on autopilot, Freud thought it was more like 95% of the time. Have you ever driven to your place that you work and you don't remember getting there? Do you remember doing the dishes? No, because you do them the same way every time. The laundry, all those little things. There are so many little things in your life that you're just doing on autopilot and you don't even realize you're on autopilot. So in order to change that 40%, you actually have to be intentional. You have to get off that autopilot for a little bit. And it's not about willpower. Any change that you wanna make in your life, any change to habit, any time you'd like to stop doing something or start doing something, it really is not about sheer will. Shear will will get you to the starting line. Shear will will not finish the race. It's the training. It's the intention. It's the repetition that gets you to the end of the race. Now they say it takes 21 days to create a habit. I dispute that. I think it's more like 30 to 60 and maybe even 90 and I'm sorry if that's depressing. But it really is not about how many days you do it in a row. It's about the number of reps you get in. Isn't that what it is in everything else? It's about the number of steps that you get in to determine what your overall activity level was for the day. So the same thing is true here. It's just about how often you repeat it until it becomes the new normal in your brain. And you have to be intentional. One of the first things I tell people that I coach is to change, and we talked about this at lunch, is to change one small thing in your morning routine. Brush your teeth, wash your face, something like that. Just something that you do on autopilot. And if you can't think of something in your morning routine because I've had people say, well I can't think of anything in my morning routine. Well then find something in your nighttime routine. Find something that you do every day on autopilot and switch the order of it. And the reason I have you do that is because I want you to understand how hard it is to change your habits. You have to be intentional to change your habits. And even something as small and subtle as changing the order that you do things in the morning, it's not gonna affect your life. It's not gonna affect your finances. It's not gonna affect you physically. It's not gonna affect you spiritually. But in the morning, when you're trying to do it, you're gonna be like, oh, this is so wrong. My teeth feel awful and I just feel like I should have brushed them before I started washing my face. Trust me, you will be uber aware of what you're doing. And it will feel awkward and uncomfortable. That's true about every habit you try to change. They're all equal. I don't care whether it's the order of what you do in the morning or if you've decided that you'd like to change your health, your eating habits, your exercise habits, your relationships, it's all the same. It just takes intention and repetition. Why am I telling you that today when I'm talking to you about happiness? Because if you want to change your happiness, you're going to have to change your intention and you're gonna have to do some repetition. So I want you to think about that just for a second. Is there something that you could change in your morning routine to try this out, to do a little experiment? Think about that for a second. Maybe that's something that you can cement and take home with you. So to create a new environment starts with cues. So for instance, you can see all those cues there if you wanna take your medicine, set out the bottle. If you wanna send thank you notes, keep cards out. If you wanna drink more water, put a bottle of water in every room, you have to actually be clever and creative and trick yourself into doing something different because if you don't, what's gonna happen? You're gonna go on autopilot. If you don't have a cue, you're gonna go back to your autopilot. So anything you can do to create a cue is a great thing. Another little trick I'll give you to change your habits is the 22nd rule, to create or stop a habit. So we know that inactivity is what we're most prone to. We wanna do what's easiest. They said that the Nokia cell phone ring, Nokia's, Lauren probably doesn't know anything about a Nokia phone, bless her heart. But some of you do and they had a really awful ring tone and most Nokia users never changed it. You could just like now, you can go in and change your ring tone but they never changed their ring tone. And they would say, oh, this is the most obnoxious ring tone I need to change it. Like every time the phone rang, but they didn't change it. Why? That's why they say give us your credit card, it's free for 30 days and in 30 days we'll just charge your credit card because they know we are prone to inactivity. That's not a bad thing, it's just the way we're built. It's okay, you just have to understand that. So if something takes 20 seconds of effort, it's gonna be a little harder for you to do. The author of The Happiness Advantage did a little experiment and he wanted to learn to play the guitar. So he got his guitar, he took it in, had it all tuned up, hung it up in a closet, had a calendar on because he was gonna try for at least 21 days to practice the guitar every day. How many times do you think he actually practiced the guitar? Any guesses? Yeah, one, one time, exactly. You're exactly right. And then he took that same guitar and he put it on a stand in the middle of the living room right in the line of fire from the front door. So when he walked in his front door, he saw the guitar. How many times do you think he practiced? 21 days, because it was right there. He had to walk around it. He'd say, oh, and he'd pick it up. Even if he only did it for a few minutes. The same thing works the other way around. He took his batteries out of his remote control. So think about this. You take the batteries out of your remote control and you come home and you go to pick it up, you sit down and you pick it up. And all you have to do is go over here to the kitchen. Right? Open a drawer, rumble around, see the garage door that doesn't go to this house, the VCR controller. What keys are those? Oh, batteries, get the batteries. Put them in the remote control and hit the on button. He says he gained three hours of reading, of things he wanted to get done because he was too lazy to walk to get the batteries out of the drawer. Wow. So I tell you what, I teach fitness. I don't normally teach in the mornings, but sometimes I do. And when I teach in the mornings or if I'm gonna work out in the mornings, I sleep in my workout clothes. And then I put my shoes right on the other side of the bed. And while I'm still trying to wake up, I tie them. And then I kind of stumble into the kitchen and I think, oh, I'd really like to go back to bed. But I already have my shoes on, so I guess I'll go work out. That's how your brain works. All you have to do is know these little tricks. You learn these little tricks, you make it easier. 20 seconds of effort, 20 seconds of less effort. Make it easier, make it harder. Use the 22nd rule. Be aware of what you're trying to change. Be intentional, set yourself up for success. That's one of the best ways to start to make small shifts, which includes a shift in your happiness. The more you repeat any action, the easier it becomes. So you know, hey, if you wanna juggle cats, it just takes a serious effort of repetition. And one day, you too can juggle cats. So think about that for just a second. Is there some way that you could use the 22nd rule? For me right now, it has to do with Oreos. Anybody else got a problem with Oreos? If they're in the house, they call to me. I can hear them saying my name. So what I've done is I have taken them and put them in a very, very high place. So I have to go into the kitchen, get a chair, take it across the kitchen, climb up it, and get the Oreos out. And do you know that lots of times, I'll just say, I don't need an Oreo. But if they were right there, what'd I be doing? What if they were out on the counter? Game over, yep, half a bag, consumed. So use this. This is a great tip for anything and everything in your life, but including the little changes you'd like to make to focus more on your happiness. So what can you do? So now you've got this information about how to create a habit and how you can start to make some slow shifts in your life. So what kinds of things can you do? Well, the first thing is intentional happiness boosters. Do more of what makes you happy. That sounds absolutely ridiculous. Like why did we need to have her come here and say that? Do more of what makes you happy. Duh, but seriously. How often do you come home at the end of the day and the dog is there greeting you and the kids are there greeting you and you say, I don't have time. You brush the dog off because you've got to get that load of laundry in or you've got a project that you're working on or you need to get out to the yard or whatever it is. Do more of what makes you happy. Stop, pet the dog, give the kids a hug. Just for a minute. Doesn't mean you have to not do whatever it is you were gonna do. Do more of what makes you happy. How often have we noticed that when we have something that we're looking forward to, it's easier to get through every day. What if you're going on vacation? Have you ever told somebody, maybe they came to you and they asked you to do something that they know normally kind of rustles your feathers and they say, hey, would you do this for us today? And you say, no problem, because you know what? One day, two hours, 34 minutes and 16 seconds. I am out of here. You will not see me for two weeks. So give yourself something to look forward to. Wow, that's an interesting idea. We wait until somebody invites us for supper. So somebody says, hey, do you want to see this movie? Hey, I'd love to go to Greece. Well, let's plan a trip then. You have to be intentional. If you are not intentional, life will lead you around. You have to take charge of your own happiness if you want more of it. And a little bit goes a long way. They did an experiment in Ohio where they worked with a group of seniors and they tested them for decision-making and memory and cognitive skills. And one group they gave a little box of chocolates to. Do you know the kind I'm talking about? There's like four chocolates in there. I think that's really cruel. I don't know who invented that, but I think it's cruel. Okay, I just had to get that out there. And then they gave them a little thank you card. Four chocolates and a thank you card. Not a big deal. So then another half of the group, they did nothing for. Administered the same cognitive tests with these folks. And at the end of the day, the happy group, the one that had received the chocolates and the card performed significantly better. And as a matter of fact, they had the highest level of performance in the group. So think about that. Cognitive skills increased from what? Four chocolates and a card. Four chocolates and a card. So what was that about? What happened there? They felt appreciated. Doesn't take a whole lot. It doesn't take a whole lot. They did another study where they gave doctors lollipops. And they split them into two groups to test for their ability to diagnose patients quickly and correctly. So one group was the control group. They didn't do anything with them. Then they had a second group that's the lollipop group. They gave all of them lollipops. And they didn't even get to eat the lollipops because that might have altered their blood sugar levels. And then that might have skewed the test results. They didn't even get to eat the lollipops. And these are grown-ups, people. These are not children, okay? 20% faster, correct diagnosis. Again, I ask you, why? What did a lollipop do? It was the act of being given something, being appreciated. It doesn't take much. You don't have to overhaul your life to become happier. It's the little, simple things that make a difference. And there's also a physical effect that undoes stress. So this is a horribly cruel experiment, but they took a group of high school students and they had them give a speech in front of their peers, which for some people is like death on a plate, right? If you're really afraid of public speaking. And they monitored their heart rates, their blood pressure, all of these things during this process. And in this one, they did exactly what I did with my son. They showed him a joyful video, one of those little cat videos that made him laugh for a minute, right? And then they had a sad video and a neutral video. And it actually lowered the blood pressure and heart rate of those who saw the joyful video. Their bodies physically demonstrated a lower level of stress from that one small thing. Think about that. What can you do to be intentional about increasing the little things that you do to create more joy in your own life? Happiness is a physical effect and it actually undoes stress. It's incredibly important in your field to understand this. So intentional happiness boosters. What are some of the things that you can do to intentionally increase your happiness? Meditate. So if you go to my Facebook page, Mia Austin, and you'll look, you'll see that I recently posted a video with my horse where I demonstrated the power of meditation. And actually, all I did with my horse was to take three or four deep breaths while I touched his nose. And in that time, those three or four deep breaths, you can actually physically see this thousand pound animal shift. You can see his head drop. You can see his eyes soften. Three to four deep breaths. I repeated this experiment just last week. One of my workout students has been bringing her daughter to class. Her daughter's been suffering from anxiety and has been pulling out her hair and her eyebrows. And she didn't know what to do about it. And so she told her daughter, who likes horses, she said, I'll start you with some horseback riding lessons. If you will, you know, you gotta be calm to ride the horse. And she thought, well, this is a very therapeutic thing. This will be good for her. Well, it actually had the opposite effect because this little girl got so worried about if she did something wrong that prevented her from seeing her horse and she became even more anxious. So what was well-intentioned kind of blew up, right? And so she asked me if I would talk with the little girl and I did and she came and worked out with me and after the workout, I simply put my hands on her shoulders, on both of her shoulders. And we took a couple of deep breaths together. And after those few deep breaths, you could see her presence physically change. Her shoulders dropped. You could just feel a different energy in her. And then I was able to explain to her that you are in charge of the energy that you bring, especially to a horse. They sense that from you. And not only will you benefit from being around horses to help calm you, but you have to set the tone for the horse. It's your energy that the horse feels. And this little girl has started listening to meditations at night before she goes to sleep. And her mother reports to me that it's made an incredible difference in her life. So when I say meditate, I'm not talking about going up on a mountain at sunrise, with a gong and some sort of incense going, no, if you have a fitness tracker, you have some sort of a meditation app on it. You have access to all kinds of meditations on your phone and on the internet. There's tons of free stuff that you can do. You can take just a few minutes. You can take two to three deep breaths at any time, any place. That helps relieve stress and it creates happiness. What else can you do? Give yourself something to look forward to. You plan the activity. You put it on your calendar. You decide. You give yourself something to be excited about and that will increase your level of happiness. Random acts of kindness, what does that do? Well, anytime you get out of me, me, me, me, me, you get out of self and you're thinking about somebody else, that actually increases your happiness. When I go downtown in Lawrence, they have metered parking and I like to go up and down my row and put money in anybody who's getting ready to get a ticket. That's just one of many things I do. My husband prides himself on making the morning coffee for me and having it ready for me before I, you know, it's kind of like a thing. Like, well, I've already made your coffee today. You know, and I'm like, dang, you beat me to it again. So sometimes I work really hard to surprise him. It's such a small thing, but he'll say, you make coffee? Yeah, I love you. Thank you for making it so often. I just wanted to return the favor. It doesn't take big things, guys. Doesn't take big things at all. Start to pay attention to the little things in your life. That's where your happiness lies. You can change your physical environment. Now you may not be able to do that and put your office outside. I realize that, but you can be intentional about what you put around you in places where you spend a lot of time. So that's my dog. That's Mud Puttle. You might've already seen a picture of him on some of the stuff that they've published. And all I can tell you is, when I come home and Mud Puttle greets me, I feel so loved and appreciated. And I keep telling my husband, if you would simply start doing this when I walk in the door, then you might get a whole different reception from me. I'm just saying, you know? But seriously, all I have to do is see a picture of that little dog right there. And I get a feeling. That's an intentional happiness booster. Put things around you that make you feel good. And you know what? Take things away that don't make you feel good. Does anybody else just let the news play in the background, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC? Just the nightly news, whatever it is. And you're mindlessly taking in all that negativity. And right now, well let's just say for the last however many years, it's mostly negative. And it doesn't matter who you're listening to or what you're listening to. Turn it off. Be intentional. Remove things. If something makes you feel bad, remove it now. I'm not talking about husbands or wives or kids or anything like that, okay? Just get that clear. But remove it. Exercise. We all already know I'm a fitness instructor, so you know I was gonna talk about exercise, right? Yeah, that's actually me. I teach a lot of hip-hop classes. And that's one of them in black light. But yeah, exercise, but what exercise? Do you don't have to join a gym? You don't have to do all of that. Just anything you can do to move and sweat. You know, if you like to ride bikes, then go for a bike ride. If you like to roller blade, roller blade, grab a friend and walk. Walk your dog. Don't do it like that though. But actually they say that exercise is a more powerful cure for depression than antidepressants. And that it actually results in a longer period of sustained happiness or at least a lack of depression than an antidepressant medication. Wow. Just move. Take some deep breaths. Money. I know they say money can't buy you happiness. Actually it kinda can. Because when you spend money on spending time with other people, not stuff, on events that you're looking forward to, on random acts of kindness and gifts, when you're doing that, then money can create happiness for you. And then do more of what you're good at. One of the things that I do is something called predictive index. I also do enneagrams and I do strength scope. But I love predictive index because it really helps people understand exactly what their zone of excellence is. And the more time you can spend in your zone of excellence doing what you're good at, the more you will have freely flowing happiness. If you are trying to be something that you are not, the majority of the time in your day, you are not going to be happy. Can you do that? Yes, absolutely. Is it necessary sometimes? Sure. Should you be doing that? No. You need to learn by whatever source there's tons of different tools and instruments out there to help you understand more what your strengths are and how to use them more. Do what you're best at. So which one of these things might you try when you think about it? What one syncs up the most with you? If there's just one thing on that list that you could do, think about what it is. Another way to increase your level of happiness is to change your perception. They call that the fulcrum and the lever. That there is a direct correlation between where that fulcrum is and how well balanced you are. And you have control of the fulcrum. So you can move that to change your reality, so to speak. Because your perception is everything. Not what truly is reality. I don't really even care what reality truly is because whatever you think is your reality. It's not about lying to yourself. Yes, hard things are gonna happen. Life comes in cycles. There's so many different beautiful poems, Bible verses about the cycles of life. There's a time to die, a time to be born, a time to harvest. And there's always gonna be cycles in your life. Life is not perfect, life deals us hard blows. But it's what you do with those cycles. And it's how you become intentional when life does knock you down hard to make sure you're doing what you need to do to pick yourself back up. You have the power to do that. So I wanna do a really quick little experiment. I want everybody to close their eyes. I'm gonna have you sing, row, row your boat, not out loud, we don't wanna hear that. Sing it silently to yourself, okay? And you're gonna start when I say go. You're gonna stop when I say stop, go. Okay, how many of you think that you sang, row, row your boat for 30 seconds? Raise your hand, nice and tall. 30 seconds, anybody? No, 20 seconds. Anybody think you did it for 20? Raise your hand, come on, don't be shy. 20 seconds, get them up. 15 seconds, put yours up. 10 seconds, five seconds? You 10 second people, you like that song, don't you? Row, row your boat. I know that because you didn't find it obnoxious. And you people that thought it was more like 20 seconds were thinking, this is stupid. But I do that for a very real reason. All of you did the exact same thing for exactly the same amount of time. And all of you had a different experience. Your perception is your reality. You control your perception. They did an experiment with 75 year old men, this is a really good book if you have time to read it. So they took them back in time to 20 years earlier, which would have been 1959. They said everything in their environment to be 20 years earlier, everything. Magazines, TV shows, everything in the house, everything around them, everything they had access to was all 1959. They were there for two weeks and before that they measured their posture, strength, cognition, and their short-term memory. So after two weeks, what do you think happened? Do you think anything happened? They did. You're absolutely right, young lady. They also had eyesight improve. Whoa, stop and think about that for a second. Whoa, what happened? They put them in a house where everything looked 20 years earlier. It wasn't 20 years earlier. So what happened? They thought it was 20 years earlier. What happened was their reality changed, their perception changed. They even were picked out in photographs in the after photographs as being younger, like this picture was taken years before this one. That is how powerful your brains are, ladies and gentlemen. What are you doing with that power? How are you harnessing that to create more joy and happiness in your life and for your family? Your mindset determines your reality. Your brain reacts to what it thinks. So this is really cruel, and I don't think we would do this in the United States, but they took these students in Japan and they blindfolded them and they were all terribly allergic to poison ivy and they rubbed it on them and they told them it was poison ivy. And how many of them do you think got poison ivy, broke out in a rash? 10, anybody else? All of them, you think so? Well, they did. Yep, all of them got a rash. Guess what? It wasn't poison ivy. What? They thought it was. That's how powerful your brain is. And then they actually rubbed poison ivy on them on the other arm. How many of them do you think got a rash? Two. Just two. Yeah. Have you ever heard somebody declare things that happen to them a lot? Oh, I always, I always get a rash. I have to be really careful when I'm working out in the yard because I always get a rash. Your perception is your reality. So one of the things I like to have you do is think about what you've been unintentionally affirming. What have you been saying out loud? What have you been declaring? What are you telling your children, your beloved? Because whatever you're declaring and saying is going to become reality. It's powerful. So how can you affirm what you want? That's what we're here to do today. And I know it's the old Saturday Night Live because I'm worth it. No, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about saying I am whatever and you don't believe it because if you're doing that, it's not gonna work. You have to find a baby step affirmation. Like, I am open to becoming more healthy. And then maybe the one thing that you do, the baby step that you take is that you stop drinking one pop a week. One pop a week. Yes, that's what I would recommend to one of my coaching clients. You know why? Because you can do that. So you've said I wanna get healthier. You're affirming that by saying I am open to becoming healthier and now you're gonna stop drinking one pop a week and you can do that. And then we build on that. What are you affirming? What are you saying out loud? Make it intentional. And then you just need to understand that you're gonna go through stress. All those famous people used adversity as their stepping stone to greatness. Adversity isn't a bad thing. It's one of those cycles. And then you have to understand that sometimes we feel helpless. And this experiment really was the first experiment of its kind that established this theory of being helpless. They put these dogs in these crates. This is also bad. I'm not a proponent of this. I'm just sharing the information. Don't shoot the messenger. They put these dogs in crates and when they put them in the crate they gave them a little zap. And all they had to do was jump over a very low wall, easy to do, to the other side of the crate to get away from the thing that was zapping them. And they didn't do it and they couldn't figure out why. Well, because they learned to be helpless. They thought they couldn't get away from the zap and they didn't do anything. They put some people in a room with white noise and said, go over there to these controls and figure out how to make the noise go away. One room, the controls worked. The second test room, the controls did not even work. Both groups entered. Both groups tried to make the noise go away. One was successful, one failed. They brought them all out, gave them some fresh air, sent them to an entirely different location and put them into two rooms again and gave them the same assignment. What do you think the people who had been successful before did? They went and turned off the noise. What do you think the people who had not been successful before did? Nothing. They just sat there. They didn't try. They over-learned. Have you ever had one thing happen to you? Just one bad experience. And you believe that that will always happen to you for the rest of your life. You're responsible for your stories, for the stories that you tell yourself. You know, if a bank got robbed and you happen to be in that bank, cash in your check for the first time in many, many years of having direct deposit. And lo and behold, the first time you've been to the bank in 10 years and the bank gets robbed. What's the story you're gonna tell the next day? Are you gonna come in and say, oh my gosh, you guys, I went to the bank yesterday, I got robbed and of course I'm there. I haven't been in the bank in 10 years and the bank gets robbed when I'm there. And then you know who gets shot? Mwah, I got shot in the arm right here. And I had to go to the emergency room and I was there until four o'clock in the morning so the dog didn't get let out. So when I came home and I walked in the house, squish and oh my gosh, and then I had to be in this morning because I had that really big meeting. Or do you say? I was at the bank yesterday for the first time in 10 years. The bank got robbed. Luckily, no one got hurt but me and it was just a minor wound and I was home before the end of the night. I'm so very grateful. How would you tell that story? You have that power to change your story. You can take any story you're telling yourself and change it. Social connections are the last thing I'm gonna share with you tonight and they're so important and they're the first thing to go. Our need to be with other people, to be in community, whether you're a loner or not, I don't care because all human beings are hardwired to be in community with other human beings. But you know what? The first thing that we do when we get stressed is we withdraw. They did a study of very happy people and guess what? They're not all rich. They don't all live in Hawaii or the Tahitian Islands but they do all have very strong social bonds. That's part of what you're doing here with this program. That's why this program is very needed because it's those very strong social bonds that keep people happy. And when you have a big project what's the first thing you do? You isolate. Nope, can't. I'm gonna miss the kids ball game tonight because I got a lot to do. Oh, I wish I could go on break with you, but I can't. You need to stop. You need to take breaks. You need to reach out to other people. You have to be intentional. This is one of the biggest areas that you may not realize that could be impacting your happiness, especially after COVID. You need social connections. So what are you gonna try? Are you gonna focus on happiness maybe? Do more what you're good at? Do some of those intentional happiness habits? Work on changing your perspective or maybe a story you've been telling yourself? Spend time with family and friends? There are lots of little things that you can do. Today, when you walk out that door that can change the way you feel but you have to be intentional. And so then I'd like to leave you with this because I've talked about cute little kittens and puppies. So you have to look at that for a minute before you really understand what's happening there. Yes, that child is covered up by two dogs. That's her fuzzy blanket. And oh, isn't that adorable? Look at that cute little puppy. Here, let me help you smile. And at the end of the day, the only reason I'm here is because I just wanted to make you happy. Thank you. Thank you so much. If you'll go ahead and come back up, please. On behalf of Major General Sims and Command Sergeant Major Mullen-Ax, the big red one in Fort Riley, Kansas families would like to present you with a token of appreciation for sharing your time with us this evening. So thank you for your positive energy and your time. Wasn't that wonderful, ladies and gentlemen? Let's give Miss Austin another hand clap. Thank you so much. Very inspirational, motivational. What a wonderful way to end our Friday and to end this week. We all have some really wonderful nuggets to hold on to. You have blessed us, you have inspired us. And so on behalf of our CGDA Sims and Mrs. Sims and the entire Fort Riley community, we want to say thank you, thank you, thank you. Please take your time leaving and hurry back. Didn't she start off our speakers series in a first class manner? Very good. Outstanding, we thank you so much. Again, everyone, thanks again for coming out this evening. Have a wonderful evening. Please, if you get a chance, come and shake her hand or talk to her personally. And we'll do our best to make sure we keep this moving. We're excited about our next speaker, which will take place Wednesday at five o'clock right here. So please tell a friend, share the information, and let's continue to make the year of the family a successful and positive and impactful campaign. God bless all of you. Thank you.