Your Brain on Business Part 8: The Power of Belief

The Power of Belief

All right, welcome back to’Your Brain on Business’. My name is Rick Phelps. I am an ActionCoach business coach, and we’ve been talking about your brain. Last week was ‘The Power of Words’. This week’s we’re talking about ‘The Power of Beliefs’.

And this is based on a web TED Talk by Kelly McGonigal, ‘How to Make Stress Your Friend’. So search on TED for Kelly’s name, How to Make Stress Your Friend, and you will see a lot more about what I’m about to share with you because it is mind-blowing!

Is Stress Harmful for Your Health?

Here’s one of the quotes she starts her presentation off with:

“People who experience a lot of stress in the previous year had a 43% increased risk of dying”.

– Kelly McGonigal

Now, this is 2021, we’re in the middle of a pandemic, hopefully, at the tail end of a pandemic, there has been a tremendous amount of stress in a whole bunch of people’s lives, probably yours included. So this is not a happy thought, is it?

High-Levels of Stress & Risk of Death

People who experienced a lot of stress the previous year had a 43% increased risk of dying, according to the analysis and the study that Kelly did. However, that was only true for the people who also believed that stress is harmful to your health.

How often have we heard that stress is bad for you, stress is bad for you, stress is bad for you. Turns out, stress is bad for you, if you believe it’s bad for you. And stress isn’t bad for you, if you don’t believe it is! Again, the power of our mind! This is mind-blowing.

Belief About Stress Being Harmful for You

People who experienced a lot of stress in the past year, but did not view stress as harmful, were no more likely to die. In fact, in this research and this study, which she’s describing in this TED talk, they had the lowest risk of dying of anybody in the study, including the people who had relatively little stress!

“So, what do you believe about stress? Is it killing you? Or is it helping you become ready for the challenges of life and to be successful? That’s really an important question for you to answer.”

– Rick Phelps

Physiological Response to Stress Depends on Beliefs

But wait, there’s more. People who spent time caring for others showed absolutely no stress-related increase in dying, zero.

Caring for others created resilience related to the brain chemical oxytocin. Watch the TED Talk to find out why that is. This is some really, really cool information, right? Our physiological response to stress depends on our beliefs.

Change Your Beliefs to Change Your Quality of LIfe

And we can change our beliefs and we can help other people, care for other people, and dramatically, and I mean dramatically, improve our results, both from a health perspective, from a quality of life perspective, and from a quality of business perspective.

My name is Rick Phelps. I am an ActionCoach business coach, and I can be reached by email address there and my cell phone number as well. Please feel free to reach out and in the meantime, have a safe and profitable week.