Happy Free Thoughts Thursday, people.

I have one ask of you this week: please respond to this email with your answer to question #2 which I've bolded below.

I'd like to feature some of your answers in next week's letter.

To get your gears turning, here is my answer:

Life should be lived by design, not by default.

(h/t Chris Williamson)

3 Things I’ve Learned:

1. Your beliefs shape your reality.

In a study at UNLV participants underwent a v02 max test to determine their aerobic capacity and then they were randomly split into two groups.

Before completing a second v02 max test, Group 1 was told that they scored higher than average on the initial test (regardless of their actual performance) and Group 2 was simply told that the second test was for validation purposes.

Upon completing the second v02 max test (and accounting for other variables), participants from Group 1 showed an increase in their aerobic capacity of 3.28% while participants from Group 2 showed a decrease of 4.11%.

Directly from the study:

"The present findings demonstrate that VO2max is not a fixed capacity but depends, at least to some degree, on the performer’s self-efficacy expectations or confidence."

"Our findings may have implications for other settings, where coaches or others could facilitate movement efficiency relatively easily by providing positive motivational statements."

Put simply—your thoughts impact your performance.

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2. Control your breathing, control your emotions.

When you breathe rapidly you increase activity in your amygdala, which is responsible for feelings like fear, anxiety and anger.

Conversely, when you intentionally pace your breathing you increase activity in your insula, which is responsible for regulating your autonomic nervous system and has been linked to overall body awareness.

In short, when you focus on your breathing you have the ability to regulate your stress and emotions.

You hear this all the time related to practices like meditation and yoga, but as you know by now I find it much more helpful to see data to support an idea.

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3. Happiness is about less, not more.

From Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, Author of Don't Trust Your Gut:

"In researching Don’t Trust Your Gut, I became obsessed with the Mappiness project founded by George MacKerron and Susana Mourato.

They pinged people on iPhones and asked them some simple questions: What are you doing? Who are you with? How happy are you? From this, they created a dataset containing more than 3 million data points.

The major lesson I took from their ground-breaking research is that the things that make people happy are really simple and obvious.

As I summed up the research, the answer to happiness is 'to be with your love, on an 80 degree and sunny day, overlooking a beautiful body of water, having sex.'

The key to happiness, I concluded, is ignoring the noise from the world that over-complicates things."

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2 Questions for You:

1. What’s a simple activity or habit that consistently makes you happier, healthier or more productive?
2. What is one simple truth that you live by?

1 Quote:

“There will always be rocks in the road ahead of us. They will be stumbling blocks or stepping stones; it all depends on how you use them."—Frederich Nietzsche

I recently had dinner with my best friend and his family.

Every time I'm with him or any part of his family I always walk away with something valuable.

This time I walked away with a few things and I want to share one of them with you.

We were discussing some of my favorite guests that I had on From the Beginning, which is a podcast I put together for a few months before focusing more on YouTube.

As we were discussing what made some guests better than others, my friend's aunt explained an idea called The Four Gates of Speech.

It's a mental checklist to run through when you're interacting with others which helps you determine what to say and what not to say.

The four gates are:

1. True—is what I have to say true?
2. Necessary—is what I have to say necessary?
3. Timing—is it the appropriate time to say this?
4. Kind—is what I have to say kind?

I was amazed when she explained this concept.

Knowing what to say (and when) and what not to say is something I've struggled with my entire life and it's certainly had an impact on my relationships.

I used to say things I shouldn't and my excuse was that I was brutally honest. But the truth is that I was immature.

Sometimes I would try to make up for my inability to say or not say the right things with grand gestures or acts of service, but no matter how meaningful the gesture or thoughtful the service it never managed to make up for the thousands of little moments that comprised 99% of the relationship.

It's the culmination of those little moments that determine the quality of our relationships—how well we listen to our friends and family and partner and the quality of what we ultimately decide to say or not say to them.

Listening is an art that requires practice, but The Four Gates of Speech helps make what we decide to say or not say more of a science; it's a real, tactical set of questions that we can use as a filter between our thoughts and our words.

“Speak only if it improves the silence.”—Ghandi

I'm pumped about this and I hope you find it useful as well.

Don't forget to respond to question #2 above!

Live your life to the fullest,

Chris

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