Dr. Sexton is a social psychologist who specializes in emotional wellbeing and positive
psychology at Duke University. Bryan is currently the Director of the Duke Center for
Healthcare Safety. For almost two decades, Bryan has been researching: (i) the psychology of
burnout, (ii) tools to enhance resilience, (iii) teamwork, (iv) relationships, (v) mindfulness,
and (vi) emotion regulation. Today his research instruments are used around the world,
including in over 3,000 hospitals across 30 countries.
Marc is an entrepreneurial-technologist who has designed and implemented technological
solutions across a wide range of organizations. Marc was working on a social positivity messaging app.
The app would send positive messages, via text, to those who wanted to receive them.
Initially, Marc developed this app to help his son, who was going through a bit of a hard
time. The popularity of the positive message texting app quickly grew beyond what Marc
expected. Because of the unexpected growth, Marc was looking for ways to make the app
better, and to add new functionality to help more users.
Matt, an experienced entrepreneur who has had multiple family members struggle with
depression and anxiety, knew that the tools Dr. Sexton had been using for research purposes
and were now proven, needed to be made available to the general public. At the same time,
all three recognized that they didn't want to profit from the suffering of others. Through
discussions and meetings, the trio decided that a new company, Take2Minutes, needed to be
launched as a non-profit to help people in need.
Over the last 40 years, the field known as "positive psychology" has become a serious and well-respected area of study, with significant data validating many of the solutions that have been created. Bryan introduced our group to research by the world's leading positive psychologists, including Martin Seligman, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Christopher Peterson, Barbara Frederickson, and many more. This led our group to examine what was being done in the field of positive education, including the work being done by the University of Pennsylvania, the Geelong Grammar School, Kipp Charter Schools, and the Black Dog Institute. Positive education tools, like ours, focus not only on overcoming stress, anxiety, and negative thoughts but also on building life skills, including grit, optimism, resilience, growth mindset, engagement, and mindfulness.
Our brains focus on the negative to keep us safe in a hostile world. However, we can change this behavior through neuroplasticity. You can teach your brain to focus on positive things. Through the research of many people we can understand that the amount of effort given to this process does not proportionately relate to the result received. Because of this, we are simply encouraging you to take 2 minutes a day for yourself. From this minimal amount of time, you can yield big results through consistency. The tools we have developed at Take2Minutes have been created and designed to help you do just that.