Episode 56 with Jodi Mulholland
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[00:00:00] Welcome to Permission to be Human, the podcast. I'm your host Mel Findlater, mother, coach, and curator of Permission to be Human, the company and community. If you're a mom, know a mom, or want to be a mom, and you crave getting out in the world to make a difference, then you're in the right place. This is a space for moms like you to connect with yourself, your purpose, and your big audacious dreams.
Because when you feel your best, you can better you, your family, and the wider world. Let's do this.
Happy birthday to us! It is one year since this podcast, Permission to Be Human, the podcast has come into fruition. That's not even counting the trailer that happened a little while [00:01:00] before. I'm so excited that, one, I've made it this far. being consistent every single week. An episode has come out Tuesday morning, 7am PST.
And you know what? I'm so excited that people are listening because I really believe in this message that mothering is what's going to change the world. And you moms and you people mothering with big audacious dreams, we need to support you to be your best self. Right. And to have those big dreams. So thank you so much for showing up and listening to this podcast, whether you've listened since the beginning or this is your very first episode, I am so, so grateful and appreciative for you being here right now.
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So thank you. And yeah, I'm gonna, whoever does two, at least two of those things will be entered into a draw. And on Saturday, I will. Find some magical online tool to pull it out of a hat and see what, see who wins those two coaching packages. I'm going to add another one on and I'm literally just thinking of it right now, which is, I have a beautiful bookshelf behind me.
If you're just listening to audio, you can't see it, but it is lovely and color coded and gets commented on a lot. And I'm going to let you pick your favorite book off my bookshelf and send it to you in the mail. So that's pretty awesome. These books are full of like science backed tool, positive psychology, inspiration, parenting, strength, faith models.
There's so much good stuff up there. So I'm going to send you a book that will be a third prize. So [00:05:00] hooray, hooray, it's one year. Enjoy the podcast for today and we'll see you soon.
Today I am excited and delighted. To welcome back, Jodi Mulholland her part one. Interview. Which is episode 44, how to recover from toxic positivity has been one of the highest. And most listened to episodes yet. So this one's going to be a juicy one, too. If you want to hear more of her story, go back and listen to that one episode 44. And if you are. Interested in a really specific tool and concept.
Listen in here
today, we're digging into.
Character strengths and how this strength based approach to life can really support you to live your big audacious dreams and best life. Really. So Jodi has a big audacious dream of [00:06:00] helping individuals and groups to thrive. By cultivating, empowering mindsets and strengths that enable them
to face the challenges of life with resilience, her vision is to create a world that is kinder. Where everyone has access to positive psychology tools to unlock their potential. This way, our families, schools, and communities can all flourish together. Jodi's goal is to empower people, to constructively apply their talents in ways that uplift humanity. How amazing does that sound right.
Stick around and enjoy my second conversation with Jodi
Mel: all right. Welcome back, Jodi. Thank you for having me. It's great to be back, Mel. Yeah, I'm so excited to have you here and to, I got so much energy after our last conversation. And we talked a lot about the choice map last time and I. I kept thinking about it over and over again after that [00:07:00] and using it in lots of different things and actually introduced it to the audience a few different ways after that.
So thank you for prompting that tool. If people listening haven't listened to Jodi's first episode with me, do go and have a look at that. And today, Jodi, we thought we'd dig into another tool because character strengths is one that has been close to your heart and really inspired you. So we're going to dig into that.
But before we do, just to kind of start us off, I thought I'd ask you a question that we've both been taught is an amazing question to ask anybody to boost our mood, to bring about the positivity in the world, perhaps as an alternative even to, how are you? Right. Which is what's good.
Jodi: I love it. Thank you, Mel.
First. I, I guess it, it, it is something that's good. It's something that's awesome actually. Thank [00:08:00] you for sharing the choice map with others and for that conversation that was really a great conversation. I enjoyed it. I was energized as well by. Everything we talked about, and I'm extra energized when I hear that something maybe that I said, or something I pick up from from someone else creates that ripple effect because I think of that ripple within a ripple within a ripple my friend Kelly Taft has a her coaching company is the ripple effect, and she was really great.
Thank you my entrance into the world of positive psychology. I, I met with her yesterday and this is something that's extra good. We had a conversation about how, I was feeling grateful. To her for reaching out to me in a chat and online chat. We [00:09:00] attended. I happened to attend a positive psychology hour online in 2021 and I was so excited about it.
I think I put something in the chat about learning more and Kelly responded to me and that was. That's opened the door for me. So that's extra good. So lots of things. My daughter just started a new job yesterday. Our son is, he moved a couple of months ago and everyone's doing well, which always makes me extra grateful.
So I'm grateful to be here. What's good with you?
Mel: That's amazing. I love that your response to what's good is Looking outward is looking at other people and the energy around you and really digging into that, that gratefulness side of you, you know, that community element of, of Kelly, I believe you said her name was, and.
You know, I just [00:10:00] think other people matter as we both know. So I, I love, I love hearing that. What's good for me is I've had a really lovely weekend gardening actually. And it was sunny and it's Easter weekend and I got to be outside in a way that was unpressured and just do whatever I felt like doing that day.
And it was really, really lovely. Played some games out there with the kiddos. And. Yeah. So that's, that's one of the many things that's good for me and definitely brings about my gratefulness as well for, for some, a little bit of warmth on a long weekend.
Jodi: I'm also hearing appreciation of beauty and excellence in there, which is one of the via character strengths.
I wonder how that she will, it's actually the
Mel: second of mine. So yeah, yeah, it's definitely, definitely in there. So yeah, what's good is a great exercise for, there's your tidbit. If you have to hang [00:11:00] up now, I don't recommend it, but you know if you, if you need to pause, pause, you've got that tidbit because what's good is such a good tool.
I think. Right. To know how to open up a conversation in a way that, you know, we say in England, we used to say, you're right. Is there a way of saying, are you okay? Like not even, are you okay? It's like, how are you? But in the, in the same way that we all respond with, yeah, okay. But what's good is a great, great way to start any conversation and often actually start my coaching sessions that way too.
So, yeah, thanks for taking part in that. Yeah. Well, thank
Jodi: you. Thank you. Into
Mel: your life.
Jodi: I love that. And if I could extend that, that tool into an evening three [00:12:00] good things intervention, you know, we call this intervention. It's really just an exercise. I recently learned that engaging in the three good things exercise at night before bed is really a great time to do that because then you.
Thinking about three good things and then adding the piece of what you had to do with those things happening as a person and really building some positive emotions right before bed is really a great way to help with with your life. With settling in for the evening for
Mel: sleep. So, so
Jodi: much. I think
Mel: that's fantastic.
Yeah. We've I've done it with my kids over dinner time. We had a habit for a while. We've kind of fallen out of it now, but it'd be nice to get back in. So yeah, three good things, or even one, if that's all that you can muster up. Right. And like, how did you make that happen? How did you have an influence on that?
Is such it's, we never think about that, right. How did I have an influence on the fact that. [00:13:00] It was sunny outside and I went out and gardened. Well, I chose to go outside. I just chose. I said, oh, I want to be out here instead of the 60 other million things that I could have been doing inside. Right? So we can choose exactly.
and point out exactly what we've done to influence that. So that's amazing. So tool one complete. So the main one we were going to dig in today, into today is the via character strings. Do you say via or do you say via out of curiosity?
Jodi: I say via, but I used to say VIA.
Mel: There you go. I recently
Jodi: took a course and Dr.
Ryan Nemick said via. So I thought he's, he's the director. I think that's his title of the, the higher via character. I mean the website to be a character. org VIA. It used to be years ago, values in action, but they changed that. So it's just a via now.
Mel: So
Jodi: yeah. So [00:14:00] tell us
Mel: like, why do we, why is it important that we share via character strengths with our audience here?
So you said
Jodi: other people matter before, which is Dr. Chris Peterson's definition of positive psychology, or he actually says, or he said when he was alive, he said that I can describe I can define positive psychology for you in three words. Other people matter. And that's a one definition. But his work with Dr.
Seligman was primarily in the development of this list of character strengths that we all have. And the research was done across many, many countries, and the, they identified 24 strengths that we all possess. Now there's been some talk of Of course, we could add to that list, but the 24 that are on the viacharacter.
org site are the ones that were were studied and were [00:15:00] just part of their research. So we all have these strengths. And if people are interested, they can, can go to the via site and take a brief quiz and learn their five signature strengths. It's, it's free. And then they'll also be able to download a printout of the 24 strengths.
As they rank. So sometimes we look at those and say, Oh, that's my lowest. You know, that's I'm bad. I'm bad at that. It doesn't mean we're bad at that. It just means it doesn't show up in our top five. And this is where they are in in rank. And once we know what our strengths are. Typically, we're not surprised to see some of these strengths, sometimes maybe, and we can use this information to in so many different ways.
So one of the ways is [00:16:00] to, look at our signature strengths and use that signature strength, which brings us greater happiness, brings us joy when we use our strengths. So who doesn't like to talk about, you know, something that is inherently something that they're strong at. So one of my signature strengths is kindness.
And I love to just. go out into the world. And every day I try, it's just natural for me to express kindness, whether I'm maybe at Starbucks or a coffee shop, and I'll ask the person, you know, what's good today? Or how are you? And sometimes there's silence. And, and by the end of that exchange, there's usually a smile and I feel great myself about helping someone else have a good day.
So, so using our own signature strengths brings us a Lots of joy. That's actually researched. We [00:17:00] actually get increased happiness from using our signature strengths more than when we work on one of the other strengths, which is another thing we can do. So if we know these are my top five, but maybe I struggle with Well, I know I struggle with self regulation and many people that that's sort of lower on the list for many people, not all but many.
So I'll look at that and I can set a goal for myself can say this week or today. I'm going to work on self regulation. So that's. Really the self piece of the strengths, but one of the most powerful things and I did it before with when I said, Wow, you're really exercising your strength of appreciation of beauty and excellence.
That's called strengths spotting easy. We're not so easy for me to say strengths spotting and as adults we can do that when we just when we're having a conversation as we [00:18:00] become more comfortable with the 24 strengths. We can use those, you know, kindness honesty. So you can look at the list, but even if they aren't on the list, if you notice that someone is, oh, I, I, I guess I can think of well, humility is a strength, but you can say, I, you know, I really notice you're using your strength of humility and that really recognizing a strength in someone else brings positive feelings, which in turn deepens And develops relationships, which is really key, which is really, really key.
Mel: I love all of that. There's so There's that other person part of it, that strength spotting, as you say, I, you know, it felt good for me to, for you to point out, oh, that's your appreciation of beauty. I'm like, yeah, oh yeah, it is, isn't it? Like, you know, it feels good for the other person, but it also feels good for yourself, like you [00:19:00] say.
And, the other thing that comes up for me is the fact that we have been trained in our culture and society, at least, to, Notice what we're not good at, right? We've been trained to go to a job and get assessed, you know, every however many months or year, whatever it is, and be told what we need to get better at.
And self improvement's wonderful, right? Let's improve ourselves. And if we only do that, we're not going to feel happy. Right? And so often that's done in a way that isn't very tangible and is much more about your traits or whatever. With this, we're This is about everybody has these strengths and you have these strengths and you have these top strengths.
And as you say, yes, we can go and say, you know, self regulations down low on mine as well. Right. Although I took this a few years ago, like maybe [00:20:00] three years ago. So I'd like to do it again. Cause it may be, I'm hoping it's shifted up a bit just with my knowledge, but you know, how I work on that is through using my other strengths, right?
I can regulate myself by. Going outside and doing my appreciation of beauty. Right. And as you say, like, if we focus in on those strengths, we become happier people. And as we become happier people, we make a better world and it all ripples. It all
Jodi: ripples. So powerful. It's, it's really so powerful. In fact recently I was actually, maybe it was yesterday I was doing something and perseverance typically.
When I rate myself on the strength of perseverance, it falls short, like I have that low and maybe I'm thinking of task perseverance. Maybe I'll start something and maybe I won't finish it, which falls a little bit into self regulation. [00:21:00] However, there was something I did the other day and, and this is quite often for me, I will not give up until I finish it.
Typically, maybe with the computer or something I'm working on that I, I just won't stop. And then I realized, like, wait a minute, this, I'm really using my strength of perseverance. I announced it in the house, both of our kids were home. And I said, you know what, I really had to use my strength of perseverance to get this done.
And, that was like a light bulb for me. So it's working internally and externally in the world to just have this self awareness and to really, we can in the workplace, we can create teams. So if we have a big project and we know it's going to take a lot of task persistence or we need Creativity and we can create teams that are balanced in whatever the task or or the [00:22:00] assignment is in schools.
We can use this. Kids can learn their character strengths. And then that helps them understand like what, what they bring to the world might be different than what a classmate brings to the world. And, and it's all great. We're all individual people. And that extends to identifying, like, which kids do I want to be my friend?
Like, what do I value in a friendship? So. If I could share a little bit about my journey with character strengths. Yeah. I was looking and looking and looking over, I want to say, Probably before last summer. So about a year ago, I started really looking to build out something for schools that was, rooted in positive [00:23:00] education, positive psychology for ed and character strengths, because I felt that that's a great foundation.
So it's really, as you said, Looking at our strengths, a strengths based approach versus that weakness approach. So highlight my strengths. So I was looking and looking and trying to put something together when I stumbled across a program called the Positivity Project and one of the founders actually studied after two tours of military duty.
The two founders are West Point graduates, and one of the founders studied with Dr. Peterson at the University of Michigan, and he really wanted to bring this work to To the youth of America, really to empower the youth of America to become their best selves through character strengths. And I stumbled upon this and I started, I did a little trial and I reached out to the company and [00:24:00] I said, I love this.
How can I be involved? So I went up to Syracuse, they invited me to a training and I've been working with schools in the area who are piloting this. And I'm now in the process of completing a rigorous course through the positivity project to be a trainer with them. So I'm doing that work. And it's just been amazing.
The kids learn their strengths. The teachers do. It's 10 minutes a day. So it's not, Right now, educators are very, very overwhelmed. So it's like that one more thing idea. This is something that's so simple and the kids really are, are developing better relationships because we know that some people use the term or really it's like a crisis.
We're having this crisis of loneliness. It's an epidemic. I don't know, you know, I don't always like to use that word, [00:25:00] but we know there's a worldwide, a worldwide problem with loneliness. So this really is helpful and I'm
Mel: I'm very excited about it. I am so excited about that and see so much potential for schools and as us as parents listening to this, you know, we could go like, I guess one of my questions is what could we as parents to go and do with our kids right now that would.
Enable us to use this tool in the most positive way.
Jodi: Yeah. So there are resources on the via character dot org site. So there are resources there. The positivity project. I think it's pause project dot. I can confirm that. I just want to make sure that I have that correct. And also there are character strengths.
I mean, let's see. It is [00:26:00] posproject. org. P O S project. org. So I was correct. You and I both are members of Gozen. So Gozen has some character strengths information there. There are positivity and character strengths cards, so you can play character strength games, but the positivity project has resources.
They also have P2 as, as they call it for families, which if schools subscribe to the positivity project, they get weekly newsletters, weekly letters that go home to family saying, Hey, we're working on this character strength this week, and here are some quotes of famous people on this character strength.
Here are. Some ways this strength shows up in our lives. So, and, and that will help really initiate some conversation around what are these strengths and how does it look when we use [00:27:00] them?
Mel: Yeah. And you know, a few things are coming up for me. One is that, Working through something like this with your kid or your partner or, and all of the above is something that like puts you on a loving level playing field.
It's like, we're all these things, all of us are all of these things, right? And really working through that together. And I think as parents, accidentally most of the time. We're trying, so because we're trying to help our kids be the best version of themselves, turn into these amazing people who will do good in the world and be happy and, and make good choices and all these things.
It's easy for kids to, Mostly notice the negative ways that we end up doing that, right? For all of us, right? Exactly, for all of us. And especially, like, as a parent, you know, we nag our kids. Right? Constantly. As much as we try not to. [00:28:00] And I think that, What excites me about listening to you talk about this as someone who just nagged my kids quite a lot this morning to get to school on time, not even on time, but get to school, is that it, it gives us another conversation to have.
You know, I've tried affirmations with my son in particular who just won't have it. He, he, his mind will switch it to the negative. Every single time. Right. It's something like this. You can't switch it to the negative really. Yeah. Right. It's like, you know, we have all these strengths, right? It's just more a matter of which ones are they
Jodi: not whether you have you.
Yeah, it's amazing. It's it really I've seen people. I just completed a mindfulness mindfulness. Based strength character strengths program, which was amazing, basically mindfulness, but focusing on a strength, thinking about, yeah, so that, that was really cool. But the experiences I've had with both adults and kids.
So in coaching, [00:29:00] I'll sometimes use the via survey. And again, so I talked about the free report. You can also get. You know, it's cost based, but there are in depth reports that you can also purchase. But even that free report, so I will coach a client and I'll have them take that survey or, or, or a child and they'll take the survey.
There's a different one for kids. And then we'll talk about that. And It really changes the conversation because people see like, yes, I have all of these. And we reframe that language like, you know, something showing up towards the bottom of that list. It just means it's not something you use all the time.
Do you want to use that? You know, if you do, okay, let's, let's move, move there. And something that's really interesting to me is, when, so, we can, we [00:30:00] have these strengths, we can underuse them and we can overuse them. And I learned that, sometimes what we think is a weakness is really an overused strength, which is a hard one to grasp, but I learned this about.
Yeah. So for me, I learned that prudence It, which is one of the 24, it's really like being careful, carefully making decisions. I, that was a strength of mine, but I thought it thought it was a weakness, but the way it shows up in my life, I'm overusing it. For example, in school, so we know I was a school principal and at home, by the way, since my kids were little, they would hear me say, careful, [00:31:00] careful.
I barely took my kids to the playground because I was, I thought it was my weakness, right? I need to do this more, weaken this. And maybe it's semantics, but I was overusing that strength, right? I didn't want them to go on that little thing that spins around that they could fall off of or. whatever dangerous thing like danger is, is ahead.
Or my kids at school going on the playground, like picture that. Now you have, you know, 100 kids all running to the playground and their swings and monkey bars. And I'd say, careful, watch that, watch the curb or, you know, don't trip over the, the, the the mulch. So I realized, wait a minute, this is a strength because I also use that strength during drills.
If, you know, for example, maybe my first year as a principal, I, and it turned out to be fine. I smelled. Natural gas smelling [00:32:00] outside the school, so maybe the second day of school, and we had 12 buses come. I would not let the kids go in. We went to the field. It turned out to be something normal. It was near the boiler room and the wind was fine.
But, you know, that was. My strength of prudence in a way that I think couldn't couldn't be under undersold really that was that could have saved lives. Yeah. Yeah. But I did. I do think about this. Is this my being too careful? My overusing this strength
Mel: that I have. Yeah. And how, you know, that raises the question of how worry has what's the relationship of worry and our strengths.
Right. And how do they go alongside of each other? And yeah, that's a really interesting one. Prudence is one of my lower ones, I have to say. Yeah, I wonder if, I wonder if it's worth reading through what the, [00:33:00] the titles and maybe a very short description if it's needed, of them are just for people to get an idea of what.
What they are. There's only, you know, there's 24 so it's not, it'll only take a couple minutes. And I wonder if it's, it's worth doing that in a way that is like if you share what your top five are and I do and then we can kind of go from there.
Jodi: Sure. Yeah, what I should, what I should know is, so we have the 24 strengths, but they fall under six Like they're categorizing to six areas.
So we have a category, category of wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence. So, that's, that's just the way they're like how they're couched. So, so my signature strengths. I'm going to pull up my most, the most recent time I took this. [00:34:00] So my kindness, love, love of learning, leadership, and humor, then they group these into your, your signature, your top strengths, your middle strengths, and then your lesser strengths.
Yeah.
Mel: Yeah. I love that because none of those surprise me. Yeah, right. And it gives us this little insight. And like, I should point out, you know, there's so many like personality tests and things out there that are a similar kind of realm of thing. Right. And the difference is that this one is based on some very in depth research that they've done.
And not only research into what are the categories, but also what it does to you. to us to use them, right? It increases our happiness if we, if we look at this and use them in particular ways. So I think that's a really [00:35:00] important one to point out. Okay. So for mine, I have curiosity is my number one which is really nice for me to read because I, if I was to value one the most, it's that one.
Jodi: Yeah.
Mel: So, I think there's an interesting comparison between strengths and values as well. Where do we put our importance on things? The second is appreciation of beauty and, and excellent. So, I really notice the things out. That's where the nature part is really coming into my life. And I would say this has probably gone up since I moved back to Canada.
You know, because I've started to go outside and really use nature in that way. My third is honesty, which I can be frank and bold and, and honest. I could totally agree with that. Kindness is my fourth and my fifth is hope. So I really None of
Jodi: those are surprising to me.
Mel: Yeah, and you know, those are, those are great.
And I'll just read, [00:36:00] through the rest of mine just for the sake of getting the other ones out there. So there's teamwork, creativity. A love of learning, which I thought was higher on mine, but eight is still pretty high. Curiosity probably just kind of trumped it a little bit because they're very similar for me.
Right. How they show up. A fairness, bravery, leadership, gratitude, social intelligence, forgiveness, humility, perspective, love, humor, spirituality. Judgment, zest, prudence, self regulation, and perseverance. So yeah, my bottom, my lesser ones are prudence, self regulation, and perseverance. Which, you know, I'm okay with that.
And it's, it's easy to look at this and be like, Again, those aren't, okay, so I'm not good at those. That's not what it's saying. It's just like, that's not where I focus my attention because I'm more interested in curiosity [00:37:00] and, you know, awe and those kind of side of things. And that's okay. So, yeah.
So that's, that's, that's the, that's the 24. That's the 24. And all of those would make me feel happy to be in my top five. Right. But I definitely do connect with Probably the top 10 mostly, very well.
Jodi: Yeah, for sure. I mean, it really gives us and if I could talk about the Positivity Project again, if I'm thinking of this in terms of, of education, it gives us a common language across a school or a school district in which to really talk about relationships and who we are as humans and you know the things that were natural that come naturally to us and the things that we value and that we can grow or or change if we'd like to but just using these strengths i i [00:38:00] I think I may have mentioned it in in the last time we we met where I had lunch with a student, and this was a struggling student and I decided to really do some strength spawning with him and his response was.
really, really beautiful. I mean, I saw a smile that I haven't seen in a long time, and that was really fabulous. I mean, the student is, like just is thriving through the strengths, you know, appreciation of beauty and excellence and curiosity are for sure the student's top strengths. And when I shared like, wow, I'm really noticing, like, This, you're, you're exercising the strength of curiosity, and it's like, I guess I am curious.
I do ask a lot of questions. And that was like, I said, wow, you know, this, this is it. This is it.
Mel: And that, and that's such a beautiful way, you know, it's easy. It's easy when someone's struggling and if it triggers us in [00:39:00] some way, if it was our child or a student in that case or a partner or whoever, it's easy for us to kind of go down the like what's wrong with you realm as much as we try not to, right?
And this, this forces us as well, both the person and ourselves, to get into that space of curiosity. Really and into that space of strength and noticing how amazing each individual human is and I'm going to go as someone who is struggling with one of my kids at the moment, I think this is exactly what we need to go in and and use this as a language that we can point out to each other and say, I'm really noticing, you know, we talk about I'm really noticing worries in the room or I really notice, you know, all these things when the challenges are there.
What about I'm really noticing this great thing. Yeah. I'm really noticing your curiosity. I'm really noticing, you know, when they ask why a hundred times, I'm really noticing your curiosity. Like, that's great. Right. That's right. Reminding ourselves is that story.
Jodi: Oh, you go to [00:40:00] bed.
Mel: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And it's, and it's about the other person and you.
I think that's what I love too, is that like, you know, this can help our listeners like go and do the quiz. It's totally free. You decide if you want to go from. Anywhere from there. But if not, that's fine. But, you know, give yourself that awareness of yourself and who you are at that language. And then think about where you could use it with other people as well.
Jodi: I love this. I have this little vision of, going into a classroom. I think I'll borrow a classroom soon. And making little fake flashlights or even giving them real ones, but I'm not sure about
Mel: that.
Jodi: And to do a little strength spotting activity with this, maybe a fake, I'm just thinking now, like either a necklace or something, they can have this fake flashlight and throughout the day they can write on it.
What strengths are seeing that maybe they're using at one day. And then maybe what. What they're seeing in another student, what strengths [00:41:00] they're using what I, I loved something like what you just said about, just, I, you just got me thinking about the difficult mornings, right? Like you're trying to get it.
It's always when you're in a rush, right? That's when it's most difficult. And there's some sort of radar inside our kids that they know, I mean, other than us telling them, I really need to get out of the house by this time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They seem to know because it starts that way. And that's when our, our fuse is short and we tend to need permission to be human, forgive the cliche, but that's, that's what it is.
And then especially when it involves getting to school, because now once they're either on the bus or they're at school, we're left feeling crummy. And then we think, I hope their day is going well. Usually, you know, they brush it off, but. Our kids are all different and sometimes they don't until they get home and you can have those moments, [00:42:00] but if we can step away.
And as you said, like you're going to use strengths language and talk about strengths. That's sounds to me like a great. tool to use for any time that maybe we're having this this hard day and we're annoyed at something but if we can recognize it like anger's in the room with me other than pull over the car and yell and scream and get it out maybe this is the way to bring us one one thing to try to bring us back to what's great about our kids and and ourselves.
Mel: Yeah, it gets, it changes where we notice, right, and it takes effort because I know, I think we might have even talked about it last time, but certainly I've talked about it before, this, the negativity bias, right, so as humans, we notice the negative, and that's why three good things works at night, because we don't need to talk about three bad things.
Because they're already top of mind. We already [00:43:00] thought about them a million times. And how frustrated or how whatever it was. We know those. And we acknowledge them. Don't get me wrong. That's part of being human too. Is we acknowledge where we're at and we work through that anger. Or frustration or whatever the mood is.
Or emotion is. And negativity bias has us go there right away, but we have to force ourself, we have to intentionally act and think in the positive way. And this is the perfect, these character strengths are the perfect language to be able to do that on top of three good things. Right?
Jodi: And the choice map, if I can add that.
And the choice map, right? Without judgment, you're not, you're, you're a strength of curiosity, right? Once we catch ourselves. Heading down that judger path without judgment and stopping pausing and like what are some things I can do, right? We talked about three good things or one good thing Thinking about character strengths.
What character strength can I use in in this situation or what am I doing? Using what could I use more of and then being [00:44:00] curious, you know, what what's happening? What happened? What is the other person thinking feeling needing doing? How could I look at this differently or any other question that broadens us and helps us on that path to possibility and not getting stuck, right?
Like I find that's it's We don't want to be stuck. Do
Mel: you know where my mind's going with those three tools is if we, the character strengths are almost, if we can, if we can do that background work in a space of, a neutral space where emotions aren't already high, we're, but we're doing this connecting work with our kids and building this language and understanding each other's strengths.
Then that's kind of like this, this base underneath of us. And then we can add in the goods at night and that boosts us a bit and we can use the language of the character strengths. And then in those times that are harder and our moods and our reactions are stronger, our [00:45:00] emotions are higher, it's easier to pull on those through the curiosity, through the choice map stuff, right?
Because we've already got this base of work done. We can, we know what questions to ask. It can be the same question every time if you want. Which strength are they using right now? Because I tell you, I did not want to ask myself that question this morning towards me or my kid. Yeah, no. Be in that space.
But if his base was there and we'd already had that language, then it might just sometimes put a bit of a break on it. And slow it down and get us more regulated and back in our body
Jodi: goes to really building the neural pathways. It's we have to do something. We can change our brains, but we need to do this over and over, which, as you said, like doing this in a neutral ground.
It's that's why the education part keeps coming back to me is that it's if we can build a strong foundation for our kids.
Mel: in
Jodi: this that [00:46:00] they can know this and use this strengths language. This will come naturally to them. If we start when they're little, I mean, the positivity project does such a great job of breaking down resources.
I've never seen anything like it. That's why I was so excited. I have resources pre K and K, and then. One and two. I mean, it's really broken down from pre K on, which was very, very cool.
Mel: I'm actually really excited. I'm going to be on that website soon because there's so much work. If we can give this language to parents and their kids, and then the schools is the next level.
And I have all three. I work in a preschool. I have kids that go to a school who would probably receptive, be receptive to something like this. And then I have my family, of course, right? Like that's, there's so much. Possibility and potential in there too.
Jodi: It's, it's really incredible. It's wonderful. And it, this will change, this will change everything.
[00:47:00] Will change the world.
Mel: I love it. Okay. So as we finish off, is there a top tip that you would like to give today? Top of mind for our listeners, mums in who are just mumming right now, being themselves, doing life and hoping to go out and live their big audacious dreams.
Jodi: Oh, a top tip. So a top tip with character strengths.
I mean, I would say, make the time 10 minutes to take this quiz on the via character strength, BS via character. org and take that quick quiz. It won't take long and I can assure you, you'll feel great about what you see. Look at those top signature strengths and pick one and just use it and just be aware of that.
And use, use the language a little with your kids if you can. Just get to know that. But really think about that. Think about it. That's
Mel: all. I love it. Thanks so [00:48:00] much for joining us again, Jodi. Where can people find you if they want to get in touch or look at what you're doing? Thanks, Mel.
Jodi: They can visit my I'm on LinkedIn Jody Mulholland, Jody with an I, and Instagram at Together We Thrive, or my name, Jody Mulholland, or my email is Jody at Together We Thrive dot life.
Awesome. Thank you so much for coming. Thanks. Thanks for having me. I love, I love hanging out with you.
Mel: Thanks.
Now don't forget that it is podcast anniversary week. If you were listening between May 12th and May 18th, and there is a prize draw happening. So. Go on over to our Facebook page. Give it a like, find us on Instagram. Give, give us a follow and please, please, please. Rate and review us on apple podcast and or Spotify.
That would be super helpful for me for getting this word out and you'll be [00:49:00] entered into a draw for some free coaching with me. Or your choice of a book off my bookshelf. That is it, folks. This has been Mel Findlater on Permission to Be Human, the podcast, and I am so glad that you have joined us here today and hope that you have taken away some tidbits that will help you go away, connect with your big audacious dream, and make that massive impact in the world that you are dying to make.
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