Damian Hughes

The trust, the cooperation, the generosity that you feel with that other party becomes so much more significant.

So that's an example of a micro habit where anybody can start a conversation and work out very quickly.

Is this a hug, a hear, or a help one?

Well, one of the things that we know is that feeling that we have some degree of control over our circumstances is one of the big pillars to sort of happiness and high performance in any way.

So that idea of them being responsive rather than reactive just reinforces that sense of autonomy and control.

So choosing to set your alarm a bit early and therefore getting up in a calmer state may be,

making time to eat breakfast, spend time with your loved ones, maybe leave the house in a calmer manner rather than rushing out, is all elements that then put you in a place where your executive functioning, your reasoning and your higher levels of thought are able to be accessed rather than constantly being on the back foot and reacting and triggering those

those fight or flight responses.

I mean, I'll give you a good example from the book, Anthony, that we interviewed an amazing comedian in the UK called Sarah Pascal, and she spoke about how for years when she started her stand-up career, she would be sort of waiting behind the curtain to be announced, and she would be convincing herself that people in this audience don't think women are funny, they're going to hate me, they're going to not think I'm as good as the last person that stood on the stage, and

It occurred to her one day, she thought, who is this thought process is actually helping?

So she decided to adopt a philosophy that's been around since the 1950s from the psychotherapist Carl Rogers of unconditional positive regard.

Rather than be paranoid that everybody's out to get you, she decided to be pronoid and assume that everybody was out to help her.

So she started telling herself a slightly different revised story that...

These people have left the house tonight, but they could have watched TV.

So they've come out for live entertainment.

These people want to laugh.

These people want to like me.

And she found that just that small tweak in what she was talking to herself allowed her that when she got out on the stage, she was far more relaxed.

She was far more confident.

And she was able to create that connection far faster than what she'd been doing previously.