There are 43 muscles in the face.
You only need 17 of them to smile.
You need all 43 to frown.
A Guardian story this week captures something many of us have felt but struggled to name: in an age of overlapping global uncertainty (what some psychologists call a “polycrisis”) it’s getting harder for people to imagine a future they’re excited about. In that context, our brain’s default isn’t hope, it’s survival-mode thinking. And that’s exactly why small, intentional acts of human connection matter more than ever.
This week, my youngest daughter caught me out.
She overheard me on a Zoom call at 3am: upbeat, smiling, sounding far more positive than anyone who knows me would expect at that hour. The next day she had a good giggle about it. Fair enough. I am not a morning person.
Psychologically, it’s easy to build a 3am start into something dreadful to endure.
Physiologically, though, it turns out the easier option is to smile.
Alongside those transatlantic calls, I spent time this week with the community at UWC Maastricht: staff, leadership, board members, students, and some of their Participation Council (something like a union for the whole community).
Together, we were making solid, inspiring strategy choices for the next few years, chosen from a wide range of thoughtful options designed by the NoTosh team, grounded in research, data, and hundreds of interviews across the community.
It’s hard work to understand all the choices in the first place, let alone choose between them.
And yet the feedback (again) has been strikingly positive.
Not just because they’re closing in on a clear direction, but because of how the work has been done. People felt involved. Heard. Respected. Energised.
I know why. I’m reminded of a phrase we held onto tightly when I helped shape the winning strategy for the 2011 Scottish elections: relentless positivity. Those two words were a huge part of creating the biggest ever political swing in an election (until Volodymyr Zelenskyy beat that).
In politics, relentless positivity matters because negativity is contagious. Defensive spirals and point-scoring are easy traps to fall into.
In schools, it’s less obvious because most of us are there for the same, highly human, high-touch reason.
But schools are human systems. On a bad day, or a tired day, one small niggle stacks on top of another. Add pressure, illness, or uncertainty, and the brain does what it’s wired to do: it goes negative.
And negativity spreads faster than clarity.
Which is why sometimes the most strategic move you can make is also the simplest.
Smile.
It takes fewer muscles.
It lowers the temperature.
It brings people closer.
It translates into clarity.
And when you’re leading people through complexity, tiredness, or change that clarity really matters.
Relentless positivity isn’t about pretending everything is fine.
It’s about choosing the response that makes progress more likely.
And on the hardest days, that choice is often the easiest one to make.