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This newsletter serves a simple purpose → To help you build optimism, resilience and a solution-focused perspective.

Each week, I’ll share actionable insights that not only brighten your day but position you to be a leader within your own life and seize life’s opportunities.

Read time: 20-30 minutes.

  • Are You Winning? - Why the scoreboard is rarely the point.

  • Bright Reads - Quick links to fun or insightful articles.

  • Dixon Chibanda - The cost of a bus fare.

  • Elevated VIewing- ‘How To Live On Earth’ on YouTube

  • A Bright Idea to Consider - The house that laughs.

  • A Previous Post - Growth doesn’t have to be hard.

  • Positively Hilarious - Smile like you mean it.

  • Daily Gratitude Journal - Transform your daily routine through reflection.

Hello, Brighter Side readers! ☀️

Welcome to this week’s newest readers, and bear hugs to those who continue to read along.

Whether you’ve just hit subscribe or been with me for years, please know, I only ever write about moments and stories that I’ve lived.

The highs, the lows and what I learned along the way, always with the research and science to support it.

So… are you winning?

Someone asked me that question about 25 years ago and I’ve been chewing on my answer ever since.

This week we talk about winning.

The good kind, the ugly kind, and why losing well can set the table for future wins.

We also meet a remarkable psychiatrist who took on a mental health crisis with just a wooden bench and fourteen grandmothers, and I recommend a documentary I watched recently with my family which left me fired up.

Then, we wrap up with an old Japanese proverb about which houses good fortune likes to visit.

Spoiler: it’s the ones full of laughter.

However this week is going for you, I hope you’re having a good time.

By my count, that means you’re already winning. 😉

See you on the Brighter Side,

Chris

P.S. Please feel free to send me feedback on how I can improve. I respond to every email.

Every headline satisfies an opinion. Except ours.

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Everybody likes to win.

Well, to a degree, it all really depends on how you get there.

There's nothing quite like the moment the final whistle goes and your team is in front.

Or when you achieve that promotion you’ve had your eye on for years.

Or when you finally cross the finish line in any aspect of life that required months of dedication.

The thrill of victory is exhilarating.

It’s a testament to hard work, perseverance, and often a sprinkle of luck.

I've loved that feeling my entire life.

What took me a few more years to fully comprehend was that winning was never the whole story.

About 25 years ago, maybe longer, I spent a day in the sun with my friends at the Melbourne Cup.

If you’ve never heard of it, it’s an annual horse racing event held at Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne.

Australians refer to it as the race that stops a nation, and on the first Tuesday in November, it will do exactly that again.

These days, it draws around 90,000 people, with the record crowd clearing over 120,000.

Everyone's dressed to the nines and the champagne starts flowing early.

I'd also hazard a guess that many of the outfits being worn cost more than their owners had budgeted to lose on the races.

People were throwing a bit of cash around, you know, trying to win big.

I'd throw five bucks each way on a horse here, maybe twenty on the nose there, and not much more than that for the rest of the day.

At one point, someone approached me with a question you always hear at the races.

"Are you winning?"

I recall the question made me pause momentarily.

"If you're having a good time," I said.

“Aren't you always winning?"

I wasn't trying to be clever in any way.

I was simply having a brilliant day, and winning had contributed very little to it.

That question has followed me around ever since.

And most of the time?

It has nothing to do with victory.

Proof You Belong

I'm competitive, and I've never pretended otherwise.

Where I’ve learned that I differ from others, is that my competitive side tends to be in competition with myself.

Growing up in Australia, if there was a ball involved, I was in.

These days it's Uno at the kitchen table, where everyone seems to have their own interpretation of the rules, and my daughter wins more often than I'd like to admit.

Or chess against my son, who beats me three games out of every four and takes incredible pride in it.

He still hasn't managed to beat me at FIFA on the Xbox, though.

And, I still play to win.

What I've never needed is the win itself.

Who I am doesn't ride on the result.

When a win needs applause, that's usually insecurity talking.

You see it in the over-the-top celebration, or the story that gets shared one too many times.

A secure person doesn't need to prove they belong.

They already know they do.

Win or lose.

When your sense of self hangs on the scoreboard, every loss becomes a threat.

You protect your image instead of growing.

And you steer clear of anything you might be bad at, which rules out a lot of of what's worth learning and experiencing in life.

Less Than a Kick

Sports are an easy way to talk about winning.

Because there's a scoreboard.

At the end of the game there's generally a winner and a loser.

I've always been a sports fan, and over the years I've experienced the rollercoaster of results that come with the ride.

In 2005 I sat at the MCG and watched my boyhood team, the West Coast Eagles, lose the AFL Grand Final (Australia’s version of the Super Bowl) by less than a kick.

That's under six points, for the non-footy crowd.

Heartbreaking.

Yet, exactly 12 months later, I was back to witness them win it all against the same team.

By a single point.

That's the dream, and it felt every bit as good as you'd hope.

I don't look back on the first of those two days as a loss.

The journey was exhilarating from start to finish, and the sting of defeat only enhanced the thrill of winning that much more.

Baseball has taught me a similar lesson twice.

I was in the stands in Cleveland for Game 1 of the 2016 World Series when my team won the first game, then saw them lose the series in Game 7, in extra innings, after a rain delay.

Horrible.

Last year I sat through Game 7 at the Rogers Centre as the Jays fell just short in one of the most remarkable games I’ve witnessed.

Each of these moments rank among the most exciting things I've seen in sport.

The key is learning to appreciate all of it.

Both the highs, and the lows.

I love watching people who are the best at what they do, doing it at the highest level.

I love the crowd, the big moments and the passion of the people around me.

The strategy, the drama, the intensity of competition, and the unpredictability that keeps everyone on the edge of their seats.

Embracing it all allows us to be fully present and savor the essence of what it means to be alive.

If all you're focused on is the win?

You miss all of that.

And if your team doesn't win, what have you got?

Nothing.

Appreciate the whole experience and it changes your experience completely.

Lose One to Win One

When I was in my early teens, a good mate of mine said something I've never forgotten.

"You've got to lose one to win one."

What he meant was that you need to know how losing feels in order to understand what winning requires.

It isn't always true.

Plenty of people and teams win without paying that price first.

But we see it often enough.

A valiant side falls just short, then comes back the next year tighter as a group, carrying the added motivation of loss and much clearer on what it's going to take.

I watched my own team do exactly that 20 years ago.

There's something powerful in the way a loss can galvanise a group of people.

Because the lessons you learn when you lose are fundamental to being human.

Losing teaches you to be humble, because nobody stays on top for long.

It teaches you empathy, because you know what it feels like to be on the other side.

In fact, most of what I've learned about myself has come from the days that didn't go my way.

What I love watching is when people win well.

You know, when they’re ecstatic to have won but ultimately respectful to their opposition and all those that helped them get there.

I also love watching them lose well.

Because this is where you see real strength and character shine.

It’s in moments of defeat that true resilience and sportsmanship are tested.

The losing captain giving the other side its due.

When you see it, it's outstanding.

When you see the opposite, it's ugly.

Really ugly.

That's the winner nobody wants to be around.

The kind who'll do anything to come out on top.

Win at all costs and you might take the victory, but you lose everything else.

“Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing” has became one of the most quoted lines in sport.

It’s generally pinned on Vince Lombardi, the legendary Green Bay Packers coach.

What gets quoted far less often is that late in his life, Lombardi reportedly told a reporter he wished to hell he’d never said it.

What he’d meant was effort.

If you leave “every fiber of what you have on that field,” he said, “when the game finally ends, then you’ve won.”

The world chose to hang on to the catchy slogan, but left behind his explanation.

Away from sport, it's usually less obvious than outright cheating.

It might be taking credit for someone else's idea, or telling the version of a story that makes you look a little shinier than you really were.

They seem like small things at the time.

But every shortcut makes the next one a little easier, until it becomes how you operate.

The people around you notice, even if they don’t say anything.

And trust is the hardest thing there is to win back.

❝

"I would prefer even to fail with honour than win by cheating."

🖊️ - Sophocles

The Highlight Reel

The way I see it, a lot of our need for applause comes from the way we share our lives today.

Maybe not social media itself, but the habit of posting our wins and sharing the highlights online.

There's nothing wrong with sharing good news.

The problems begin to surface when you do it all the time.

You begin to need validation from others before it feels like it counts.

And when a loss comes along, as it always does, it feels that much heavier.

Because you've been so focused on the side of your life that you share with everyone.

Sport has given psychologists one of the clearest pictures of what comparison does to us as humans.

In 1995, Victoria Medvec, Scott Madey and Thomas Gilovich at Cornell asked people rate the emotions of the medallists from TV footage at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games.

The bronze medallists looked noticeably happier than the silver medallists.

Why?

The silver medallists were comparing themselves to the gold.

They'd come so close, and close was all they could see.

The bronze medallists were comparing themselves to the athletes who missed out altogether, and were thrilled to be standing up there at all.

It was the comparison that decided how they felt.

Not the medal.

The same thing happens when you scroll through other people's highlights.

You compare your normal, everyday life with everyone else's best moments.

Of course they often come up short.

Ok, so what about when people do get the image they’re chasing?

In 2009, Christopher Niemiec, Richard Ryan and Edward Deci at the University of Rochester followed 147 graduates through their first couple of years after university.

Those who made real progress towards wealth, image and fame weren't any happier for it, and actually reported more shame, more anxiety and more headaches.

The ones who made progress in their relationships, personal growth and within their communities came out measurably better off.

The only validation we really ever need is our own.

And if you're honest with yourself and proud of how you're living, that's an incredible place to be.

Add in the people closest to you, those who know the real story, and you have everything you need.

❝

"A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play."

🖊️ - James P. Carse

Games You're Meant to Keep Playing

In 1986, a New York University religion professor named James Carse wrote a strange little book called Finite and Infinite Games.

Its central idea is quite simple and it’s message stays with you.

A finite game has fixed rules and a clear end, like the Superbowl or a sales pitch for a new contract.

Somebody wins and it's over.

An infinite game has no finish line.

You play it to keep it going, and the rules change over time.

A marriage is one.

So is raising kids, or a friendship you want to last the rest of your life.

The trouble starts when you play an infinite game by finite rules.

We see it most clearly in arguments.

There seems to be a growing fascination these days with having to be right.

Like being right is winning the conversation and winning the argument.

Instead of compromising, listening and learning from each other.

That's a problem.

Because you might win the argument, but you lose the relationship.

Do that often enough with your partner, a sibling or an old friend, and it’ll cost you something you can't easily get back.

That makes no sense to me.

You don't really win at all.

Nobody's asking you to roll over.

Compromise is a skill, and so is listening past the moment you've decided you're right.

Stay curious a little longer than feels comfortable, and every so often you'll find out you had it wrong.

I've learned more from those moments than from any argument I’ve ever won.

Now, to be clear, none of this is a case against ambition.

Money matters, and I'd be the last person to pretend otherwise after years of building my own businesses.

Wanting to be better than you were, and sometimes better than the person in the next lane, is healthy and human.

The drive is fine.

It just needs to be pointed at the right game.

Because if you end up sitting on a pile of money and trophies with no relationships and nothing else to show for it?

You've lost.

I don't care what the bank balance says.

Practical Lessons

Choose a fairer comparison: If you’ve been scrolling and feel a bit flat, stop and ask who you've been measuring yourself against. Then swap it for a comparison you can trust, like where you were a year ago or where you started from.

Repeat their point back before you make yours: In your next disagreement with someone you care about, try "So what you're saying is…" before you argue your side. Most of the heat in an argument comes from people feeling unheard, and you'll often find you disagree about less than you thought. If you're still at odds after that, ask yourself whether being right is worth what it might cost your relationship.

Debrief your losses: When something doesn't go your way, give it a day, then ask yourself two questions. What did I learn, and what would I do differently next time? Write the answers down. That's how a loss turns into a future victory.

Let the people watching see you lose well: Kids learn how to handle a result by watching the adults around them, so do younger colleagues and teammates. When my son beats me at chess, the way I react matters more than anything I’ve told him about sportsmanship.

Run the "everyone knew” test: Before you take a shortcut, ask whether you'd be comfortable if everyone knew how you got the result. If the answer is no, it’s not a win.

My Takeaway

I still love to win and I suspect I always will.

But I've come to see life as more of a long walk than a race.

Nobody hands out a trophy at the end, or at 25, or 50 or 75.

The point, at least the way I see it, is to enjoy the walk.

And everything and everyone that crosses your path along the way.

Somebody will ask you this question sooner or later.

Are you winning?

Look around the proverbial table before you answer.

Look at who's there, and whether they're glad to see you there too.

Think about how you got to where you are, and whether you'd be proud to explain it to your kids, or your parents, or your closest friends.

Reflect on the choices you've made, the challenges you've overcome, and the values you've upheld along the way.

Are they the principles you hope to instill in the next generation?

That's the only scoreboard that really matters, and it doesn't need an audience.

The only validation it needs is the confidence that grows from knowing you've stayed true to your values.

That you can sleep soundly each night.

It's about integrity, respect, and the impact you have on those around you.

Success isn't just measured by accolades or material gains; it's reflected in the relationships you build and the legacy you leave behind.

If you're having a good time, and the people beside you are having one too, you're winning.

You always were.

❝

“You are never really playing an opponent. You are playing yourself, your own highest standards, and when you reach your limits, that is real joy.”

🖊️ - Arthur Ashe

Legendary coach John Wooden won ten national championships, yet he says he never once talked to his players about winning. If you’ve got 18 minutes, this video is well worth your time.

Watch it here:

🎨 A Doctor’s Murals of the Navajo Nation Just Earned Him an $800,000 “Genius Grant” - Chip Thomas has spent 36 years as a primary care physician on the Navajo Nation, and the giant portraits of his Diné neighbours that he pastes onto abandoned buildings, grain silos and roadside walls, work he describes as a form of community care, have now made him one of this year’s MacArthur Fellows. Read more → (My Modern Met)

🐘 368 Farmers Gave Up Part of Their Land So Elephants Could Cross the Valley Safely - Landowners in southern Tanzania were paid for narrow strips of their farms to create the country’s first protected wildlife corridor, linking the savanna to the Udzungwa Mountains, and in its first 15 months trail cameras have caught 529 elephants walking through it, with 100,000 native trees planted along the way. Read more → (Good Good Good)

🌱 Eight Small, Surprising Habits That Build Lasting Happiness - Endlessly chasing quick rewards like scrolling, snacking and impulse buying tends to leave us overstimulated rather than satisfied, and experts say lasting happiness comes from meaning, absorption and connection, with research-backed habits that include immersive hobbies, acts of kindness, gratitude and spending on experiences over things. Read more → (BBC Science Focus)

🧀 The Salty Leftovers From Making Cheddar Could Become a Clean New Fuel - Researchers at Scotland’s Heriot-Watt University have found a way to turn salty whey, a by-product the UK churns out at roughly 95,000 tonnes a year, into bioethanol, and they’re now exploring small mobile units that could do the work right at the dairy. Read more → (New Atlas)

🧠 Everyone in the Room Thinks They’re the Only One Struggling - Behavioural scientist Danny Kenny explains why we so often read other people’s silence as proof that we’re the only one finding things hard, and shares the simple question behind his closest friendships and best teams: what are you working on that you need help with? Read more → (Big Think)

Dixon Chibanda, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe has fewer than twenty psychiatrists to support a nation of over seventeen million people.

In 2006, Dixon Chibanda was one of the few.

He worked in Harare, and the patients he saw heavily depended on him for follow-up.

One of his patients, a young woman named Erica, died by suicide.

When he asked the question why she hadn't made it to his clinic, he learned her family couldn't afford the bus fare to reach his clinic.

That was the moment Chibanda made the decision that care needed to sit within walking distance of the people who needed it most.

Fourteen Grandmothers

A Friendship Bench is a simple idea.

Somewhere in a community, usually at or nearby a local clinic, there's a wooden bench.

A grandmother that has been trained via a few simple tools (and has all the time in the world) sits on it, allowing anyone who's struggling to sit down beside her and talk.

The first bench was constructed in Mbare, a township within Harare, along with fourteen volunteer grandmothers, who’d been trained in a simple form of talk therapy.

For the first four years, Chibanda paid for it out of his own salary.

Why grandmothers?

He's said they’re "rooted in communities" and already play a pivotal role in problem-solving.

The role itself was already there, he just added the training and made them feel empowered.

He started out referencing the vocabulary of his profession, using words like depression and suicidal ideation.

The grandmothers told him plainly that those words wouldn't work, and asked for ones that belonged to their community.

Together they settled on kuvhura pfungwa, "opening up the mind," and kusimudzira, "uplifting."

They named the bench too, after turning down "Mental Health Bench” as way too stigmatising.

That’s wisdom.

Each session is quite practical.

The grandmother works through a person's problem with them at their pace, step by step, and uses a short symptom questionnaire to judge how serious things are.

Severe cases are passed on to the professionals.

Everyone else usually meets her a few times.

An Al Jazeera article describes a grandmother named Ngabu, 59, who sat with a woman and helped her find a practical next step: joining a savings club.

It worked and the club helped her grow her business and pay for her children's education on top.

❝

"Too many people are left without life-saving support due to stigma, cost or distance."

🖊️ - Dixon Chibanda

Testing the Bench

In 2016, JAMA published a trial of 573 people with anxiety or depression across 24 clinics in Harare.

Half the clinics offered six sessions with a trained health worker, and the other half stuck with standard care.

Six months on, 14 per cent of the people in the bench group still showed depression symptoms.

In the standard-care group, it remained at 50 per cent.

After the trial, Grand Challenges Canada put CDN $1 million behind taking the model to 72 clinics across three Zimbabwean cities, and more than 27,500 people were treated.

Then, on 7 May 2026, Friendship Bench won the KBF Africa Prize, worth €250,000, from nearly 900 applicants.

The prize went to the organisation Chibanda founded.

In the time since, the King Baudouin Foundation says it has now supported more than a million people through over 3,000 community health workers in 12 countries, at roughly $13 to $16.50 a person.

Incredible.

Not every bench has taken root, though.

Versions in Jordan and New York's Bronx and Harlem closed when their governments didn't back them, and Chibanda puts the failures down to a lack of local buy-in.

Even in Zimbabwe, the grandmothers worked unpaid at first.

They now receive about $25 a month.

Psychologist Dr Nilofer Naqvi brought forward a wider concern.

She fears cheap, lay-delivered care can allow health systems to skip the expensive investment in specialists, and that it could leave a grandmother alone with a violent psychotic episode.

The programme's answer is a referral.

When someone needs more than a conversation, they're sent on to a hospital.

So the grandmother isn't meant to be the last line of defence.

The Book

Chibanda told the full story himself in April 2025.

Releasing his book The Friendship Bench: How Fourteen Grandmothers Inspired a Mental Health Revolution.

Kirkus (an established American book review magazine) called it "a well-documented, profound reevaluation of mental health approaches in the developing world," and it’s since been featured on CBS Sunday Morning and NPR's Here and Now.

The book follows people like Farai, a mother living with HIV who was struggling with shame, and whose life improved after a single conversation with a grandmother on a bench.

It also explores kufungisisa, the Shona idea of "thinking too much," and it closes with practical toolkits for anyone who wants to start a bench in their own community.

If you'd like to learn more about Dixon’s story, that's where I’d go.

Practical Lessons from Dixon Chibanda

Look at what's in the way: The treatment was available in Harare, and a bus fare put it out of reach. Before you offer more help, find what stands between a person and the help that already exists.

Let the people you serve fix your language: Chibanda brought the right idea and the wrong words, and the grandmothers handed him better ones.

Listening works better with something practical attached: Bench sessions are built around solving a problem, and they lead into peer groups that teach income-generating skills. The next time a friend needs to talk, ask what one thing could change.

My Takeaway

I only came across Dixon Chibanda recently, but I recognise the type.

I've always been drawn to people who see a real problem and then go and do something about it.

Plenty of people will circle and discuss a problem for years, but it’s taking action that solves problems.

What stands out most about him is the humble beginnings from which it all emerged.

Just fourteen wise and capable grandmothers, a bench, and a psychiatrist covering the cost from his own salary for four years.

The addtional support and funding came later, after the trial provided something successful for him to point toward.

Even when the grandmothers told him his language wasn't landing the way it should, he simply changed it and continued moving the project forward.

Twenty years later?

More than a million people have been supported by his idea.

❝

"Whether it's London, New York or Zimbabwe, everywhere the issues are similar - loneliness, access to care"

🖊️ - Dixon Chibanda

Who better to share the story than Dixon himself, you can check out his 2017 Ted Talk here:

Most of us already know.

We know that the bees matter and we know the forests matter.

We also know that what we eat, how we build and where our money goes can all leave a mark on the planet.

In recent years, knowing has never been the problem.

I watched this remarkable film with my family recently.

Nature means a lot in our house.

We value our relationship with it, and we understand how much our future depends on it.

Which is why one thought kept nagging at me as we watched.

It's 2026.

We should be well past understanding this by now, and getting on with fixing it.

How to Live on Earth is a new documentary from director Fredi Devas, presented by Benedict Cumberbatch from inside London's Natural History Museum (which is right around the corner from where I used to live 😃).

It played in select UK cinemas this summer and is now on YouTube.

It runs just over an hour and a half and is WELL worth your time.

Why It's Worth Your Time

This documentary is hopeful, but it doesn't go easy on us.

Early on, we're taken to the pear orchards of China.

Pesticides have wiped out the local bees, so workers now climb ladders and pollinate the blossoms by hand, one flower at a time, using feather dusters.

Next up, drones.

We got rid of the bees, replaced them with people and are now replacing the people with machines.

These orchards are only one of countless examples across the globe.

In 2018, a team led by Ron Milo at Israel's Weizmann Institute estimated the combined weight of every mammal on the planet.

Livestock made up about 60%.

Humans sat at 36%.

While wild mammals, ranging from elephants to field mice, represented just 4%.

Cumberbatch then asks the question that follows us through the rest of the film.

Is this how we want to live on Earth?

What Makes It Stand Out

From there the film goes looking for better answers.

And finds plenty.

Singapore has grown gardens on its rooftops and turned concrete drains back into living rivers.

In South Korea, forest therapy is helping people with their mental health.

Scientists are making protein from air and growing meat alternatives from mycelium.

Investors are using resources to determine how to value a tree while it's still standing.

All of this is real, and it’s happening right now.

Which is why it got under my skin.

We know there's a better way.

People all over the world have already found it.

Yet so much of how our world still pulls in the other direction.

Subsidies reward the cleared forest over the standing one.

A tree only shows up on the balance sheet once it's been cut down.

Devas makes the point that Indigenous communities look after nature because they depend on it.

The rest of us depend on it just as much.

We just continue to put more distance between ourselves and the forest.

Practical Lessons

Hope needs evidence: When the news makes it all feel bleak, remember Singapore's rivers and Korea's forests. Plenty is already working, you just aren’t being shown it.

Value what's still standing: The next time a park, wetland or a forest near you is up for development, ask what it's worth remaining as it is.

Follow your money: Systems tend to shift when the money does. Where you bank, what you buy and where your savings are invested all back some version of the future.

My Takeaway

Many folks will see a famous name on the poster and think to themselves, here we go.

Another actor telling me how to live my life.

Come on, seriously.

Pull up your boot straps.

Cumberbatch is there to hold the film together.

The people worth listening to are the farmers, scientists, foresters and city planners he hands the microphone to.

Watch it.

Learn something about what's going on in the world.

Then do something with it, however small.

The more eyes on this film, the better.

The gap that exists between knowing and doing is one we built ourselves as humans.

Which means it's also one we can remove.

❝

"Until you dig a hole, you plant a tree, you water it and make it survive, you haven't done a thing. You are just talking."

🖊️ - Wangarĩ Maathai

If you’re yet to see it, check out the following link for the full feature:

Got a recommendation?

Please share; I'm always keen for great suggestions.

The Lesson

Laughter has been called the shortest distance between two people.

And to this day it remains the quickest way I've seen to get people to drop their guard.

Very few remain stiff and careful when they’re gassed after laughing together.

And when you have a home that laughs together regularly?

You have a home that runs on connection and warmth.

Laughter creates a sense of belonging and shared joy.

It encourages open communication and helps us to diffuse tension, allowing for more harmonious relationships.

Ultimately, a home that laughs together is one that thrives on mutual understanding and love.

Of course, the Japanese have a proverb about this:

“Warau kado ni wa fuku kitaru.”

Kado means gate, so it’s saying fortune arrives at the gate of a household that's laughing.

Meaning lightness invites good things inside.

Which it absolutely does.

❝

"Fortune comes to the house that laughs."

🖊️ - Japanese Proverb

Go Deeper

It’s quite difficult to prove that a laughing house brings luck, but researchers have begun looking at what's happening inside us.

In 2017, a team that included the Oxford psychologist Robin Dunbar scanned the brains of twelve young men twice.

Once after thirty minutes watching comedy with close friends.

Once after thirty minutes alone.

After the laughing, their brains had released more of the body's own opioids, the chemicals tied to pleasure and closeness.

The researchers believe that could be one way laughter builds friendships and keeps them going.

Those opioids also dull pain, so they tested that too, and the results saw the pain threshold rise more after a comedy than after a drama.

Keep in mind, this was a small study, and everyone tested was male.

So we’ll just log it as a clue.

Laughter also transcends language barriers, I’ve experienced it time and time again.

You can crack up with someone who doesn't speak a word of your language.

My own perspective on this is that most good fortune arrives through people.

The tip about a potential job or the neighbour who offers a hand.

People hold doors open for those they enjoy having around, and people who relax around you share more and remember you better afterwards.

Make them laugh in the right ways and it further strengthens the bond between you.

When people associate you with positive experiences, they’re more likely to value your presence.

Practical Lessons

Pass it on: When something makes you laugh, send it to someone today. A photo or a line from the kids. It takes ten seconds.

Let the small stuff be funny: Burnt toast and lost keys are free material. Laugh out loud at yourself and see who joins in.

Be a little goofy with the kids: The silly voice, the made-up song. Kids laugh really easily, and when kids laugh? The adults tend to follow.

Keep it kind: A joke at someone's expense shuts the gate, people only tend to relax when they're in on the joke.

My Takeaway

I've always found laughter to be the great connector.

A while back, I wrote about a night in our living room.

It was just a silly moment between my son and I that set off a giggle, and it spread.

Soon he was rolling on the floor with tears running down his face, and my wife and daughter were gone too.

For several minutes none of us could make eye contact without starting again and we loved every second of it.

We aim for our living room to be the house in the proverb as often as we can.

And while not every day will feel like that one, when you know and appreciate that they exist?

You look for ways to make it happen again.

And again and again.

❝

"Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face."

🖊️ - Victor Hugo


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