How to Inspire the People Around You

and guess what, you're a leader to. 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.

leaders needed. And I got a lot of opportunities 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.

And I think that asking that question all over the world about a 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 is that the inspiring leader and the inferiting 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 continual 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 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 the third factors 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. And then the third insight is that we're not born as inspiring

people or inferiting 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 infuriting way by learning those characteristics, by nurturing them, by developing them, by practicing them.

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.

learned to train her voice to be more effective. Now later on, you know, twenty years later, I was doing research on how power affected people's voices, And what we found is that when we put people into 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, 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.

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.

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 been their leader

essentially and 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.

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 a 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 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.

fills me with joy. But one morning he came in much earlier than usual, let's say, five am instead of like six thirty, and I was working on the book, and I had gone to sleep much later than usual, like one am, and when he snuggles, he also moves around him, 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. And then a few days later I just noticed that he wasn't snuggling with me. He'd come into the bed, but it kind of goes 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 some otherwise. And then later that afternoon I put two and two together and I was like, ah 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 smuggle with you? And he said yeah, I said, and I explained to him that I had nothing new 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, 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 twelve, 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, you know. And so we have these reactions and that's true as a leader, right, you could have the people have reactions that have no idea why they've turned on you, you know, and it could be just a misunderstanding.

belief that somebody's not good at something. And honestly, if I had 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.

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. I apparently I said to her, and I vaguely remember saying it, there's literally nothing interesting 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 off hand comments, but for her each one was like deeply impact.

some suggestion for improvement. Adam Golinski 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.

see it like I'm the paper towel guy today. You know, you could imagine get ampstairs and the teachers saying, ash Er, thank you so much for getting those paper titles so quickly, and that would then motivate him in the future. So we're really driven by praise. Danny 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 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.

first big research presentation from the faculty. And historically what I would do is I would do there and I'd scribbled on 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 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. 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. So 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 thing, 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 talk, I remind myself, this is their first talk. I'm going to only praise. I'm not going to criticize tollal 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. I'll just give you one very quick example. I was doing a lecture for fifty cs and at ten point fifteen 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 ten twenty nine, 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 the point about this example which are so critical and so important. The first is a finding from my research, which is that powerful people tend to be impulsive, so this guy couldn't even 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.

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.

job on the presentation. You know, they're going to feel really good inside if you said it just you know, an 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.

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 her other conditioner experiment, 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, 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 is going quick is like, why are you so slow? And the person, you know, doing it with high qualities

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.

University 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 are behind or tied in the final minute. Just this miraculous thing. 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're in the national title. 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 is 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.

and that predicted who graduates five years later. Right in a study I did, we randomly signed 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 causing the effect, 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 a Columbia Business gool, 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 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 Abaran behavior And how can I just go through the world with a more generous frame

of mind as my top value? As 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.

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 had this like just just 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 few state of tears of like just nothing like I'd ever seen real again, the leader amplification, in fact,

the parent amplication effect. I had to train myself, even when he's fine off the handle, to always take the more generous path, right, the more bigger sure 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.

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 rural world that drove me to do some of this research that you're talking about, Laurie, 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.

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 pasts that you almost took that would have led you away from this partner. Then we laters asked people how important is this person

to you? How significant are they? How meaningful is this relationship? Now, 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.

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 or groups journey more meaningful is think about the past that we hadn't taken as one way of really helping us value the path we are on.

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 Golinski's next tip is for leaders to pay particular attention to the power of emotional contagion.

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. 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 what happened to you when you and their passion, and people start saying, my eyes got wide, I started to smile, I leaned in, And so we start reciprocating the behavioral things, but start feeling that passion perkoly 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 passion, I'm gonna make my eyes big. Oh wait, now I got a.

shots at a bar in Pennsylvania. The reason why the Newyartimes 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 yet, but seeing him doing the same activities that an everyday, average person does humanized him. 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, geing a second year. There's three categories. There's thumbs up, thumbs down, you're SCREWGE, 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 able to do those

things 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 the question is how do you find the guidance that you need and tap into the resources that you have to be successful.

more vulnerable. But as a leader, I also know that sometimes you 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? Yeah?

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, 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.

just to get some practice writing. And that's when we used our manipulation where we told half the people think about time when you had power and the other half we're talking about it when you lack power. And then we have them apply for a job, put their application and sealed envelope, and then 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 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 express 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 studying, 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 that power. And then finally some research in Europe, they asked people

to do public presentations. But why they did them. They measure their physiological arouse 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.

for ourselves. So in negotiations, we've shown, for example, that car salesman says, I can offer you this car for twenty five thousand dollars and a five year warranty or twenty four thousand and a three year warrant. Now most of you can quickly calculate that for the car salesperson when your warranty is worth five hundred dollars to them. But what you're saying is, I don't know how much warranty is worth you, So I'm going to let you make that choice. And we've shown a couple of things

in our research that are really really important. The first is that we can 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 we've 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 exciting

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 prople. Now, I started doing this research back in the nineties on choices and negotiations, but in the mid two thousands I saw it in practice

as a parent. I wasn't a parent yet, but my twin brother is a parent, and his daughter was not getting dressed and she was fighting everything, and talking to my ster in law, you know, we said, what if we start giving choices? And so she do that. She just hold up two parents' pants, Okay, Fiona, which parent 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. Any time 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 gonna be fewer transaction costs, there's going to be less frustration. Everyone's going to be better off.

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. 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 at 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 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 because 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'll try to push this to the extreme. We said, okay, it's an entrepreneurial situation. Two people. There's two finalists, and 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 think my competitor who also helped me gave me

some great advice. Now you could say, oh my god, you've just raised the status 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.

of characteristics that are central. One is that we really take the perspective of the person, we really engage with them, we think deeply about their situation, just really getting inside their head, but look in the world from their perspective what they need and what they want. And one of the things that we're 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. And so we showed in our research that downward learners, people who say I can learn a lot from people who are below being 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

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 learn something valuable from someone below you in the hierarchy. And then later we put them a position where they we're going to have to serve as a mentor for someone, and we ask the mentees about their experience, and we found that when they've been randomly signed to be with

one of these downward learning reflections. People who had just engained this reflection, they rated them as more engaged but also more impactic. And so it was a combination of that engagement and empathy that made them feel like they got a lot more benefit out of that interaction.

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 at 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, you know, because he was going to school in Hawaii. And it was 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 would have to come up with a different strategy to keep the birds out of our house.

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, reflecting on times when you had power.

We're confident, we're 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 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.

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 to aggressive in a way that hurts 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. 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 sew. Reap what you sew comes from agriculture, right, like we tend to our crops and we reap what we sew. But it has two meanings that I think are really important. The first is that what we do

today impacts the future. 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 spiritedness back to us. And so my reap is not spelled ore eap, it's spelled ore eip and RIP is an acronym, and our stands for reflections so again we talked about the power of reflecting on our own experiences, but also thinking about when we're 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. 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 in 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, 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.

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? If it's empathy, then how can I be the most empathic boss? Tip number four is to marvel it where you're at right now.

Appreciate all the decisions, hard work, and strokes of luck that build 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 leave. 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 arles with our teams and even our arrivals. 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, Doctor Laurie Santos