iThrive Wellness Summit 2020

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iThrive

Don Mackintosh

The Vital Role of Hope

And we're gonna talk today actually about hope and what is it, how to have it.

What's the impact of hope on physical and mental health?

And how can you help someone increase their hope?

But before we begin, let's just bow our heads in prayer.

God, Father God, we're thankful that we could come to you today in the name of Jesus.

And we ask that you would increase our hope as we talk about hope today.

I don't know who is listening, but I know that each of us need hope and we need more hope than we probably have.

And so increase my hope, increase our hope and help us to work with others to do the same.

Well, you know, we live, like I said, like Dr.

Ramirez said, and by the way, thank you, Dr.

Ramirez and the team out there for inviting us.

Live in Weimar, California, in a place that used to be called Hope Village.

Actually here at 1 time, they had over a thousand Vietnamese refugees that came and Ruth Graham, Billy Graham's wife, along with others turned this campus into a huge refugee camp for Vietnamese.

And they came here and they found hope and they found help at Weimar.

Well, that's been a few years back after they left.

Seventh-day Adventists took over this institution in 1978.

And then people began finding hope here for the reversal of diabetes and heart disease and better yet the prevention.

Speaking of hope, there was a researcher once, his name was Carl or Kurt Paul Richter, and He did some research on hope where he took some rats and he put them in some vats of swirling water and let them swim there.

He wanted to see how long they could swim.

They swam an average of 15 minutes before giving up and sinking.

Another study, genetically the same family of rats.

So the only difference was he rescued the rats just before they were drowning, dried them off and let them rest briefly, and then he put them back in the same buckets of circulating, swirling water.

Very nice guy to put those rats right back in.

The rats could swim an average of 60 hours before drowning.

Went from 15 minutes to 60 hours, 240 times longer than if not temporarily saved.

Just by taking them up and drying them off, a vast difference was seen.

What was the reason they were able to swim longer?

Well, it was because when they got dried off, it gave them hope.

Hope that someone would reach in and dry them off.

And they were given energy through that hope, and they were able to swim for hours because of the hope they'd been given.

Well, hope is something that was not studied for many years at all, but recently it has been studied quite vigorously.

2019, for over 2000 published studies on hope, and they demonstrate the power of hope in areas of education, work, health, mental health, social relationships, family, and also the recovery from trauma.

It's not just something we speculate about.

Now those with high hope levels do better in life, they overcome trauma better, they survive cancer more often, they do better in school, they make better employees, they navigate through natural disasters and pandemics better.

They do better in navigating injuries, diseases, and physical pain.

They score higher on satisfaction, self-esteem, optimism, meaning of life, and happiness.

And they excel at high rates in academics from elementary school to graduate school.

So let's look at some of those areas and look at some of the stats, and then we'll look more closely at hope.

The higher the hope of a child, the higher the daily attendance, the lower the tardiness, the higher the grades, the better the test scores.

If you want your child to do better in school, give them hope and increase their hope.

Hopeful children are more selective in the courses they choose.

They are intentional, choosing pathways to advance their goals.

And hopeful high school students have higher grade point averages, fewer absences, higher graduation rates, and higher college enrollment rates.

So hope is definitely something to look at if you're an educator.

Recent study found that hope is a better predictor of college graduation and grade point average rather than are the traditional placement tests the ACT, SAT and the high school grade point averages.

So the person is filled with hope they're going to do better.

It's also the best prediction of them staying in school and graduating.

In fact, the Gallup Poll Organization conducts an annual hope and Student Engagement Survey, and this is what they found.

Sadly, less than 1 half of all children report being hopeful, even though it's a great thing for education.

There's a lot of hopeless kids out there.

Only 1 half of the students reported being engaged with school.

And so, you know, this brings us to this discussion, why is it the kids have hope and why does some not have hope?

And 1 of the reasons is because of adverse childhood experiences.

Some kids have had very many what they call ACEs, adverse childhood experiences, and so the social and emotional and cognitive impairments come and a lot of things happen.

We have health risks of a disease and they're in danger of early death.

ACEs are what you get adverse childhood effects before age 18.

You walk them down the street and there's 38% of people you meet don't have any negative things that have happened to them, they're 38 percent.

24 percent have 1, 13 percent have 2, 3 ACEs, 9 percent of people you meet, 4 or more ACEs, 16 percent.

There's a lot of people that are walking around with a lot of burdens.

And when you have an ACE, it really can impact your brain, brain development.

The normal is on the left and on the right.

You can see someone who has all kinds of ACEs and neglected.

And You can see actually the black areas where the brain is actually sloughed away.

Then here also in the temporal lobes, you can see that large black area there.

On the right, where the brain is not active at all in those areas.

Most active is filled like a gray or white.

That's why we need to know what hope is and how to increase it, which we're gonna come to.

But let's look at something else before we look there at that.

Hopeful employees, while they set more goals for themselves and the company.

They set goals that are more complex, like not just getting through the day, but how can I advance the company?

They're better at critical thinking and problem solving.

And they're more energetic in their pursuit of goals, not only their own, but the company's, and they're more likely to experience success and goal attainment, and they report higher levels of satisfaction and commitment to the organization.

So if you're in charge of an organization, probably the number 1 thing you can do is to talk about hope and giving people hope and increasing hope will increase the success of your organization.

Hopeful employees tend to be more helpful to their co-workers, contribute more high performing work teams or more to high performing work teams.

They produce lower levels of burnout and they're more likely to be engaged with their work and approach new tasks with great vigor.

They have lower turnover, and so hope again is something you would want to instill.

A recent economic survey found that a hopeful employee contributed increased profits of nearly 21% to the company in comparison to employee with low hope.

So, man, if you are a manager of any type, if you're a pastor, if you're a teacher, if you're working with people, if you have anybody answering to you, really focusing in on what their hope level is and how to increase it is something very important.

Employers should be looking for workers with higher hope in their lives and employers should be aspiring to increase hope in the lives of those already working for them.

Well, what about hope, health, and healing?

By the way, the word hope is many times used in the graphics of different places.

I just picked these randomly off the internet.

People like to use the word hope because it's so important.

When hope is high, patients respond better to treatment, are more likely to engage in prevention strategies, are more likely to comply with health provider recommendations.

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The Vital Role of Hope

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