📈🥹 Three things proven to boost your mood

🥹 Let it out. Some quick hits to kick off the week:

• A recent survey shows that 82% of Americans are hopeful about their own futures and 85% of them are hopeful about the future of their families. Love to see some optimism! If they can be hopeful and optimistic, why not you? We’re going to build a great future for ourselves, one day at a time.

• Researchers at the University of Virginia learned that the bacteria in yogurt can combat depression and improve mood and mental health. Oh hell yeah, pass the Chobani. I’m feeling more hopeful already.

• A “happiness expert” at Yale told CNBC that the number one thing people can do to feel happier is “engaging in social connection.” She’s not wrong. Opening ourselves up to more in person interaction, even with strangers, can go a long way. When you’re having a bad day, try striking up an upbeat conversation with someone in the checkout aisle or the coffee shop. It really does help.

• A website called Cry Once a Week, launched late last year, is experiencing traffic growth as people seek the benefits of crying without doing so in an awkward and stress-inducing social or professional situation. Did you know crying can release feel-good hormones, take your body out of fight-or-flight mode, and reduce stress?

Hang on a sec. Just gonna get a quick cry in, grab a bowl of yogurt, and head out to talk shop with some strangers. Already overflowing with optimism. This week rocks!

❤️💛 Kansas City strength. While Kansas City should have been celebrating an incredible triumph without a care in the world last week, the city was instead forced to confront a horrific and tragic shooting. In that moment of horror though, tales of heroism, kindness, generosity, and compassion emerged. In a moment of terrible darkness, we saw the light in humanity.

First and foremost, it was the local Good Samaritans who tackled and apprehended the suspected shooters. Amid all the chaos, panic, and fear, heroes like Paul Contreras and his daughter Alyssa or Trey and Carey Filter took action, bringing the suspects to the ground before they could inflict more harm. In the pivotal moment, they courageously stepped up.

Then it was the Chiefs players and coaches themselves who offered comfort to scared paradegoers. Offensive lineman Trey Smith and long-snapper James Winchester sheltered with about 20 people in a closet, including a young boy who Smith pulled from the frenzy. Smith handed him the WWE belt he was carrying during the parade, striking up conversation and reassuring him they had his back. Separately, a panicked teen recounted being comforted and hugged by coach Andy Reid.

In the aftermath, generous donations poured in to support the victims. Patrick Mahomes and his wife Brittany visited Children’s Mercy Hospital the very next day to meet with them, sharing gifts, smiles, and warmth.

Nobody should’ve needed to rise to the occasion as a hero that day. Nobody should’ve been subjected to something so awful. Sadly, they were, but some of the very best of humanity shined through as a result. We can all be heartened by their display of strength and community.

🫀 A heartwarming love story. Last week we wrote about breakthrough implant devices that help patients experiencing heart failure. What we didn’t know, though, was that a similar device led a man straight to the love of his life. Thankfully, Valentine’s Day brings the great love stories out of the woodwork and onto the local news.

Back in 2018, Adam Miller discovered that he was suffering from heart failure. To help remedy the problem, doctors implanted Miller with the world’s smallest heart pump, a product from a company called Abiomed. Inspired by the device that saved his life, Miller made it his mission to work at Abiomed, which is kind of awesome in its own right. But it gets better. When he joined as a product development engineer, on his very first day, he met a woman named Casey who worked in HR.

Fast forward six years, and Casey is now his fiancée. If you know someone who doesn’t believe in fate, show them this story and ask them again.

🍗 There goes my hero. Dave Grohl is best known these days as the hard-rocking frontman for The Foo Fighters, embodying the rockstar spirit to an adoring global audience of millions. But as famous as he is on stage, he’s becoming almost as well-known for his acts of kindness, many of them centering on his love for barbecue.

Grohl spent Super Bowl Sunday barbecuing for the homeless in Los Angeles, putting in a 24-hour shift to prepare 100 pork butts, which equates to 1,800 meals. It’s the second straight year he’s dedicated 24 hours to the task, and he performed a similar act of kindness in Australia in December. Many successful people dedicate funds to various causes - and that’s amazing! - but to see someone dedicate not just the resources but the time to prepare meals with love for those in need is really inspiring.

There goes our hero, watch him as he goes!

✉️ Signed, sealed, delivered. Travel is too damn expensive. We can all agree. And to make matters worse, all the good loopholes have been closed.

For example, on this day in 1914, four-year-old Charlotte May Pierstorff was mailed by train from her residence to her grandparents 73 miles away in Idaho. As long as the child weighed less than 50 pounds, it was cheaper to mail ‘em than it was to buy them a ticket.

Honey, did you check the mailbox? Anything good come?

Catalogs, credit card offers, tax forms, and Charlotte.

Of course, we can’t ship our kids anymore, though I can’t for the life of me imagine why. USPS could use the biz. Families could use the savings. Kids could use the life experience. Win, win, win.

How many stamps do you need for a child, anyway?

⛑️ Once a first responder... It took Sheri Rapisarda a moment to realize that the low-flying aircraft she had seen moments earlier was the flaming structure on the side of the highway. But it didn’t matter what the cause of the flames was; the former paramedic was going to spring into action regardless.

She immediately pulled over at the scene of the wreckage, checking the three passengers that escaped the aircraft for injury. Then, fearing there could be further explosions, she implored them to get into her car so she could whisk them away to safer ground. On her actions, she said: “I just relied on my training and my instinct to kick in at that moment, and it did. It just did. I just acted.”

“I just happened to be driving by, and I was just able to be the little calmness that everyone needed once they got out and was just a little voice of reason just to say, ‘Hey, come to me.’”

Our first responders are incredible. Even when they’re not on the job, they don’t hesitate to respond when confronted with a situation that needs a helping hand, a little calmness, or a little voice of reason.

Two pilots lost their lives in the crash, caused by dual engine failure, but their actions in performing the emergency landing that gave their passengers a chance at survival were nothing short of heroic.

🗼 A towering achievement. Imagine spending eight years of your life meticulously stacking and gluing 706,800 matchsticks to build the world’s tallest matchstick building, a 23-foot-tall replica of the Eiffel Tower. Now imagine that upon completion, Guinness World Records declared that you used the wrong type of matches.

No amount of matches could deliver so severe a burn.

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Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and GWR conceded that its ruling was too harsh, ratifying Richard Plaud’s record achievement. The initial controversy was caused by Plaud’s use of matchsticks ordered directly from the manufacturer without the red sulfur tops; cutting them off was apparently too tedious, which is kind of hilarious coming from somebody who spent eight years building a 706,800 matchstick Eiffel Tower.

Like, that’s where we draw the line?! Cutting off the tops of the matches?! Okay, Lazybones Jones.

Nevertheless, at the end of the day, matchsticks are matchsticks, and using that many of them to build something so large is worthy of recognition.

⚾️ No leg, no quit. Parker Byrd was entering his freshman year on the baseball team at Eastern Carolina University when his life changed forever. Byrd lost his leg in a boating accident, undergoing 22 surgeries in just 45 days.

That didn’t stop him.

Last week, 19 months removed from that accident, Byrd finally stepped to the plate, becoming the first person to play Division 1 baseball with a prosthetic leg. Fittingly, Byrd drew a walk in that first at-bat, not long after he was likely left wondering if he would ever walk again. It was no doubt one of the greatest ovations you’ll ever see for a walked batter.

👏 When Sam goes marching in. Six-year-old Samuel is a Tottenham Hotspur fan with cerebral palsy. Samuel recently walked a mile for charity at Christmas time, focusing selflessly not on his shortcomings but on his ability to help others in spite of them. His beloved Spurs honored him this past weekend by having him serve as mascot, walking onto the pitch with Tottenham player James Maddison.

Maddison warmly ensured that Samuel savored the moment and that the crowd gave him something to savor. It’s a moment he’ll never forge, and judging by what he’s accomplished at such a young age, it’s just the start of an incredible life of achievement.

Go Samuel!

🏊‍♀️ Tears of joy…and pool water. You hope that when you achieve your goals - when your dreams that you’ve worked so hard for finally come true - that you’ll feel it. That you won’t just brush it aside in search of the next thing. That you’ll feel that overwhelming joy.

German swimmer Angelina Kohler felt it.

After winning the women’s 100-meter butterfly at the 2024 World Championships, Kohler was overcome by emotion on the medal stand as the German national anthem played. You can see how much it means, all those endless hours of work reflected in the sweetest moment of all.

It’s an Olympic year, and maybe Kohler could have downplayed the achievement in deferral to the bigger contest that lies ahead, but she didn’t. I don’t think she could’ve if she tried. And that's awesome.