Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, where we give you insights into the mind, brain, behavior,
Speaker 1: and creativity. Each episode will feature a new guest who
Speaker 1: will stimulate your mind and give you a greater understanding
Speaker 1: of yourself, others, and the world we live in. Hopefully
Speaker 1: we'll also provide a glimpse into human possibility. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening and enjoy the podcast today. It's really great to
Speaker 1: have my buddy Daniel Lerner on the show. Daniel is
Speaker 1: co instructor of NYUS The Science of Happiness course and
Speaker 1: co author of the new book You Thrive, How to
Speaker 1: Succeed in College and Life. Daniel, it's really exciting to
Speaker 1: chat with you today. Oh man, it's great to be here.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me. We have so
Speaker 1: much that we can talk about, and I want to
Speaker 1: start by kind of talking about your prior career. You know. Now,
Speaker 1: you teach this really popular course at NYU, You go
Speaker 1: around the world giving these great talks, You inspire people,
Speaker 1: you help people. But you were actually a talent agent
Speaker 1: for a while in the music classical music industry. Is
Speaker 1: that right? I was? I was in music was really
Speaker 1: my life the first thirty years of it. My parents
Speaker 1: are both professional musicians. My father was in the Pittsburgh
Speaker 1: Symphony and my mother was an office singer. As I
Speaker 1: believe you may know, I knew your mother. Another very inspiration.
Speaker 1: I know where you get the inspirational aspect of yourself,
Speaker 1: that's right, I mean for everyone out there. Scott and
Speaker 1: my mom was head of the voice department of Carnegie
Speaker 1: Mellon when Scott arrived, so they formed a great bond
Speaker 1: before Scott and I got a chance to meet. But yeah,
Speaker 1: right out of college, I went into the music business.
Speaker 1: I was fascinated by not only music, but really musicians,
Speaker 1: and I was fascinated by those musicians who were realizing
Speaker 1: real excellence on stage, who were pursuing those things about
Speaker 1: which they were passionate, who were communicating with the world
Speaker 1: through that medium. And so I spent almost you know,
Speaker 1: I spent ten full years in that business, first as
Speaker 1: an agent representing a talent, mostly young opera singers, and
Speaker 1: then in marketing, marketing and consulting really for all areas
Speaker 1: of the classical music business. So it was terrific. It
Speaker 1: was a wonderful opportunity to help young performers really be
Speaker 1: their best. Yeah, so you saw a lot during that
Speaker 1: time period is sort of what it takes to develop
Speaker 1: your full being, your full expression. You probably saw lots
Speaker 1: of blocks and people, right, lots of things that did
Speaker 1: you ever talk to some of the people you're representing us?
Speaker 1: You know, I think this might be blocking you up,
Speaker 1: or this anxiety or fear might be blocking you up.
Speaker 1: Was that ever a part of your relationship with any
Speaker 1: of your clients? You know, it's a great question. And
Speaker 1: I think that the way that I went about management
Speaker 1: was really helping them, well, I mean say helping, let
Speaker 1: me say, working with them to maximize both their experience
Speaker 1: on stage and their experience hostage. And that's not necessarily
Speaker 1: how agents tend to go about it. Often it's how
Speaker 1: do we get how do we help you be your
Speaker 1: very best on stage? And as my experience progressed over
Speaker 1: the years, I realized that I was really seeing two
Speaker 1: very distinctive types of artists. One was the artist who
Speaker 1: was thriving on stage, great career, things were going well,
Speaker 1: they were learning and maturing and developing their level of
Speaker 1: expertise and performance, And that artists would also have a
Speaker 1: really rich, fulfilling life often hostage. They would have a family,
Speaker 1: or they would have a great group of friends. They
Speaker 1: would have a spiritual pursuit, they would have hobbies, they
Speaker 1: would have things that were really important to them away
Speaker 1: from the stage. But I also see another kind of
Speaker 1: client artist, and that was the one who was equally
Speaker 1: successful on stage, who was traveling the world and singing
Speaker 1: big roles and by definition successful in their pursuits, but
Speaker 1: they were distinctly unhappy away from the stage. I would
Speaker 1: get phone calls at three in the morning from people saying,
Speaker 1: I'm incredibly unhappy, I'm depressed, and why do I do this?
Speaker 1: And you know, that's really what drove me to pursue
Speaker 1: where I am now, which is what's happening, what's psychologically,
Speaker 1: what's allowing one person to be successful on stage and
Speaker 1: off and the other person to be successful on stage
Speaker 1: but not all. I remember a really poigant story you
Speaker 1: told me about as someone who called you unexpectedly during
Speaker 1: the middle of their performance. Was it at Carnegie Hall
Speaker 1: or something or they are the met exactly? It was
Speaker 1: Carnegie Hall. It was Cardigi gest. I got a phone call.
Speaker 1: It was a Saturday night and I got a phone call,
Speaker 1: and I remember it was nine to fifteen and I'm
Speaker 1: looking at my watching to make a long story short?
Speaker 1: Would you like a long version of the short person,
Speaker 1: Let's go with the short version, all right, make a
Speaker 1: long story short. I got a phone call from a
Speaker 1: very very well known musician who I had never met,
Speaker 1: but whose name I knew very very well, and they said,
Speaker 1: it's intermission for me. I've been striving to be a
Speaker 1: success in this business since I was kid, since I
Speaker 1: remember singing when I was really young, and I always
Speaker 1: had the measure of my success being when I sing
Speaker 1: a solo concert at Carnegie Hall. And it almost sounds
Speaker 1: like a joke, but it's not right. How do you
Speaker 1: get to Carnegie Hall. So this person had pushed and
Speaker 1: studied and focused on this being their moment of success.
Speaker 1: And they walked off the stage intermission doing their very
Speaker 1: first solo concert at Carnegie Hall, and realized they were miserable.
Speaker 1: Life wasn't going very well. They weren't a very good
Speaker 1: partner to their partner, they weren't they're good friend, they
Speaker 1: weren't happy even performing anymore, and so their agent had
Speaker 1: given them my number. About this point, I was in
Speaker 1: coaching and said maybe you should give them a call,
Speaker 1: and sure enough they said, yeah, here I am. What
Speaker 1: do I do now? So you know, it was incredibly
Speaker 1: difficult to hear someone who would work so hard and
Speaker 1: yet was so unhappy. And I'm afraid that's what happens
Speaker 1: far too often. You know. The thing is certainly I
Speaker 1: saw in the music business a lot, but it is
Speaker 1: hardly exclusive to that field. You're going to find it
Speaker 1: in every field. And that's what's been so fascinating about
Speaker 1: doing this kind of work and meeting people in sports
Speaker 1: and music and law, in medicine, people who are doing
Speaker 1: a huge variety of things who are successful but not
Speaker 1: necessarily happy. Yeah, it's so great that you're able to
Speaker 1: leverage those experiences and apply it to helping everyone. Everyone's
Speaker 1: a big turn and shooting for it, but everyone we
Speaker 1: possibly can. In a way, I have to say, I
Speaker 1: think that they speak to the experiences speak to each other,
Speaker 1: which is to say, if I'm working with someone who's
Speaker 1: very well known and successful in a kind of a
Speaker 1: worldwide stage, that can get the attention of people who
Speaker 1: might not be there but we yet or ever or
Speaker 1: are even striving for that level of recognition. But also
Speaker 1: working with folks who are not well known, who are
Speaker 1: people you walk by in the street and wouldn't think
Speaker 1: of twice who are successful in their own way in
Speaker 1: their fields. I think that but not well known. That
Speaker 1: helps the folks who are well known to say, look,
Speaker 1: we're all human beings. We're all striving to live a
Speaker 1: fulfilling or a thriving life the way that the path
Speaker 1: you set yourself on might find your name and lights
Speaker 1: and you it might not, but we're still looking for
Speaker 1: essentially the same thing, which is living a life that
Speaker 1: is fulfilling. Yeah, I like that. I like fulfilling. I
Speaker 1: think I prefer fulfilling over happy any day. And that's
Speaker 1: such a good point. You and I have talked about
Speaker 1: that quite a bit. You know, happy is a wonderful thing.
Speaker 1: I would presume that everyone wants to be happy. Let's
Speaker 1: say everyone wants positive emotions, just to be more specific
Speaker 1: about it. But it's not hardly the only thing, right.
Speaker 1: Happy is one element of many, many, many factors that
Speaker 1: we want in our life. We want to be engaged,
Speaker 1: we want to have good relationships, we want to have meaning,
Speaker 1: we want to be accomplished, we want there's so many things.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's one part of it, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so yeah, for sure. So tell me what the cheesiest
Speaker 1: line of the semester is? Oh, that you tell your
Speaker 1: students all right, so you know, it's a great transition
Speaker 1: because when we talk about the various factors that come
Speaker 1: into play when we're striving to live a fulfilling life,
Speaker 1: I will say, look, and I will preface it eactly
Speaker 1: as you just said. I said, look, this is the
Speaker 1: cheesiest line that I will give you all semester, I promise,
Speaker 1: And then I tell them that they are all beautiful
Speaker 1: little snowflakes and they all grown as they should. Because
Speaker 1: it's an incredibly cheesy line. But the idea is really,
Speaker 1: if you try to be it's great to have role models,
Speaker 1: but if you try to be exactly who those people are,
Speaker 1: it's not going to work for you. You're different than
Speaker 1: they are. In fact, you're different from the person sitting
Speaker 1: to your right and sitting to your left. And I'll
Speaker 1: have to look around, but there are five hundred people
Speaker 1: in our class, some hundred students in our class, and
Speaker 1: look around and say, none of you are exactly alike.
Speaker 1: You know the factors that come into play when we're
Speaker 1: talking about thriving. As we mentioned before, positive emotions, relationships
Speaker 1: meaning purpose, engagement, all these different and then many many more.
Speaker 1: I see kind of like a mixing board for a
Speaker 1: music engineer, where some people want a little more bass,
Speaker 1: some people want little more trouble, you know, and they're
Speaker 1: all these little dials, and you need to have some
Speaker 1: in each measurement. You know, you have need to have
Speaker 1: a little sound in some maybe you want more sound
Speaker 1: in some areas. But they're almost never exactly the same
Speaker 1: as the person around you. The challenging part is figuring
Speaker 1: out really what works for you and bringing that together
Speaker 1: so that it sounds as to extend the analogy the
Speaker 1: metaphor that sounds as beautiful as it can for you.
Speaker 1: I bet the students really resonate with that, you know,
Speaker 1: they seem to. Here's the thing with costumes, you know
Speaker 1: very well, because you know, you've taught in undergrads longer
Speaker 1: than I have. I believe for many of them, they've
Speaker 1: gone through a machine, you know, and it's a very
Speaker 1: efficient machine of school of high school said being told
Speaker 1: when you do X, you'll be successful. Often it's get
Speaker 1: the grade and successful get into the school. You be successful.
Speaker 1: Do these extracurriculars if you want to go to this
Speaker 1: school and you be successful, and it puts them into
Speaker 1: a bit of a box. Now, structure is not a
Speaker 1: bad thing per se, but assuming that everyone is going
Speaker 1: to thrive within the same structure, that might not be
Speaker 1: as healthy. So I think to have the students to
Speaker 1: help them understand they don't have to live inside of
Speaker 1: that structure that's been given to them their whole lives.
Speaker 1: And in many cases it's parents who are saying this
Speaker 1: is a field you should go into, right because either
Speaker 1: I did you know as your parent, or because it's
Speaker 1: it offers you security. And every parent wants their kid
Speaker 1: to be secure, or they see it as something their
Speaker 1: kid will be happy with, and so their student won't
Speaker 1: necessarily try their own path. They won't understand that they
Speaker 1: won't dare to go differently, and that I think is
Speaker 1: the pathway to a pathway to really to frustration and
Speaker 1: regret down the road. Absolutely, and by the way, Scott,
Speaker 1: just the same things in class. If I ask students
Speaker 1: who here Alan are on my colleague and I asked
Speaker 1: students who here has been stressed out in the past month,
Speaker 1: people raise their hands, and I don't. It's not for
Speaker 1: us to know. I want them to raise their hands
Speaker 1: because they start to look around and realize, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: like everyone around me is raising their hand, I'm not
Speaker 1: the only one's been stressed out. And then I can
Speaker 1: turn to them and say, actually, ninety percent of you
Speaker 1: have reported that you felt overwhelmed in college in the
Speaker 1: past year. Forty five percent of you and this is
Speaker 1: numbers from the Gallop poll in twenty fifteen, forty five
Speaker 1: percent of you have said that you felt sad in
Speaker 1: college over the course of the past year. Thirty three
Speaker 1: percent of you have felt that has experienced work toabilitating depression.
Speaker 1: So we're not going to ask the depression question in class.
Speaker 1: That's a bit too personal. But to ask about overwhelmed
Speaker 1: or even ask about sadness, and to look around and
Speaker 1: see anywhere from half to ninety percent of their peers
Speaker 1: raising their hand, I think that really helps them understand
Speaker 1: they're not alone. And then we can move forward and go, look, Blakes,
Speaker 1: let's figure out what's going to work for you, because
Speaker 1: apparently whatever you're doing can either be tweaked or be
Speaker 1: overhauled or somewhere in between. And given that license, I
Speaker 1: think I'd like to think helps them really explore their
Speaker 1: undergraduate experience in a way that allows them to take
Speaker 1: advantage of wonderful opportunities that are there. Yeah, there's this
Speaker 1: expression at pen called pen face where students feel as
Speaker 1: though they have to put up this veil of strength
Speaker 1: or courage and when they're all really going to the
Speaker 1: same thing, and you know, it's really I think that's
Speaker 1: a really important point, you know, to get these students
Speaker 1: understanding that there's a lot of similar challenges they go through.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me some challenges you see on college
Speaker 1: campuses today? Oh gosh, I think I think a lot
Speaker 1: of students, Well, you bring up a pen face idea.
Speaker 1: Have you heard of that before? I've not heard that
Speaker 1: phrase particularly, but it doesn't surprise me. I'm sure that
Speaker 1: every campus has something. Many campuses I would imagine have
Speaker 1: something akin to that. Some school is probably more so
Speaker 1: than others, But I think it runs the gamut. A
Speaker 1: lot of it's perfectionism. I mean, if straight a's is
Speaker 1: what got them into college, and straight a's is clearly
Speaker 1: what's going to help to be successful at the next level,
Speaker 1: and so they start to strive for grades rather than
Speaker 1: experiences for winning rather than learning, And that can be
Speaker 1: a very slippery slope, right, because it takes the joy
Speaker 1: out of it. It can often take the joy out
Speaker 1: of it, I should say, and it can often take
Speaker 1: the engagement of it. What about just experiencing those things
Speaker 1: that you're interested in? Then you might not be as
Speaker 1: good as quote unquote other people around you, but are
Speaker 1: willing to fall in your face and fail a little bit.
Speaker 1: I think that's so key, you know, and I fail,
Speaker 1: but just to know that you're learning your own way
Speaker 1: and that's okay. So I think the grade bit is
Speaker 1: really challenging. I would say the pressure to pressure to
Speaker 1: succeed very early on in their post college careers hits
Speaker 1: a lot of students before they even walk onto campus.
Speaker 1: That's to say, Look, I'm forty five years old and
Speaker 1: when I graduated from school. One of my best friends
Speaker 1: was in the tech sector, back when tech sector was booming,
Speaker 1: and I remember him saying, I want to be a
Speaker 1: millionaire by the time I'm thirty, and I thought, WHOA,
Speaker 1: that's amazing. A million dollars by the time you're thirty.
Speaker 1: First of all, I was in classical music, so that
Speaker 1: wasn't happening for me. The second of all, that's just
Speaker 1: a lot of money for a young person. Now, if
Speaker 1: you don't make a million dollars by the time you're
Speaker 1: twenty three, you're like a failure and there's no way
Speaker 1: to come back from that. Oh, no, li of failure.
Speaker 1: I know, well, you let me know when you get
Speaker 1: to twenty three, you let me know how. But I
Speaker 1: think they see that too often, and so they start
Speaker 1: to set goals that don't necessarily align with their wellbeing
Speaker 1: or happiness. And i'd say that, you know, and maybe
Speaker 1: the third I'll say the third, but let me preface
Speaker 1: it by saying, it's the question I get asked most
Speaker 1: often that I think might be the biggest challenge. Our
Speaker 1: students would come up and say, I'm interested in these
Speaker 1: four things, any four topics. How do I choose? And
Speaker 1: my standard answer, and I can talk more about this
Speaker 1: if you'd like, but my standard answers is why do
Speaker 1: you have to choose? Yeah? I like that you're eighteen, nineteen,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, twenty two, you're interested in these four things.
Speaker 1: Maybe what the focus should be is how can I
Speaker 1: make each of them a part of my life? In
Speaker 1: some capacity so that I can continue to enjoy things
Speaker 1: that I find engaging and follow that path. And that's
Speaker 1: a tricky one because you don't get a whole lot
Speaker 1: of parental or societal support around that. But I do
Speaker 1: believe that in many ways, and we can, whether we're
Speaker 1: look at studies of passion or an array of other domains.
Speaker 1: Pursuing those things that engage you, that's an essential part
Speaker 1: of the path to living a good life. So when
Speaker 1: you're being structured out of that, it's an early path
Speaker 1: to potentially unhappiness or unfulfillment struggling. And look, this is
Speaker 1: the other thing, by the way, that I'll tell my
Speaker 1: students early in the semester is I'll tell them the
Speaker 1: story of the clients that I've had anonymously. And what
Speaker 1: I'll say is, these people will call me when they're
Speaker 1: thirty five years old and they're super successful and they're
Speaker 1: not happy. I get you when you're eighteen and nineteen
Speaker 1: and twenty. So the routines and habits that they've developed
Speaker 1: that have helped them be successful on but unsuccessful off
Speaker 1: stage field, classroom, we can work on those right now.
Speaker 1: Let's figure out what works for you. So You don't
Speaker 1: call me when you're thirty five unless you're going to
Speaker 1: share really good news with me about how often things
Speaker 1: are or you want to take it with some things
Speaker 1: and get them better. But we have the chance now
Speaker 1: to help you develop habits and routines that can get
Speaker 1: you both great at what you do and happy in
Speaker 1: your life. Oh I like both those things, right, I know,
Speaker 1: well in combination exactly it. You know it shouldn't be
Speaker 1: an either or a proposition, right, Yeah? They feed off
Speaker 1: each other, right, yeah, dynamic ways. Well, talk a little
Speaker 1: about the importance of positive relationships, not just from friends,
Speaker 1: but what about from mentors? Professors? Mentors are huge, right.
Speaker 1: So if you go back to a study I believe
Speaker 1: it was either a Gallup study or produced study a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago when they asked college graduates who
Speaker 1: had been out of school between five and ten years
Speaker 1: and who had been assessed as thriving in their lives
Speaker 1: what the key factors were during their undergraduate experience that
Speaker 1: allowed them to thrive years later. The top two answers
Speaker 1: were both about mentors or professors. That is to say,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to get this wording paraphrase here, I
Speaker 1: had a professor who cared about me as a person.
Speaker 1: And the other question was I had a mentor who
Speaker 1: who supported my interests. So friends are amazing and they're
Speaker 1: incredibly important, and never take anything away from them. They're
Speaker 1: there for the great times to celebrate them, they're there
Speaker 1: for the tough times to be able to have it
Speaker 1: to be a head or an ear, shoulder, shoulder or
Speaker 1: an ear. But professors and mentors are profoundly important. Not
Speaker 1: only do they help you set the goals that will
Speaker 1: allow you to grow and give you the support and
Speaker 1: the knowledge and the experience that will help you be
Speaker 1: efficient in your growth, but they kind of keep you
Speaker 1: the societal thumbs up, like, yeah, I'm here, I'm supporting you,
Speaker 1: I'm here for you. So let's do it. And I
Speaker 1: think that level of confidence is key. That Richard l
Speaker 1: at Harvard, when the freshmen first come in to his classroom,
Speaker 1: will ask the question again paraphrasing, what's your job here
Speaker 1: this first semester at Harvard? And they'll guess and guests
Speaker 1: and guests, and no one ever gets it until you
Speaker 1: sell it. No, you're all wrong. Your job here is
Speaker 1: to find a mentor or a professor that you really
Speaker 1: align with because that's so important to your ability to
Speaker 1: thrive now and down the line. Wow. What a complete
Speaker 1: reframing of the point of why they're there. Yeah, exactly. Wow.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, I would be hard pressed to think
Speaker 1: of anyone who exemplifies it better than you. Oh no, seriously,
Speaker 1: I mean think about all the wonderful mentors. I was
Speaker 1: super blessed with amazing mentors and music and in academia
Speaker 1: and other pursuits. But like your ARC is like amazing mentor,
Speaker 1: amazing professor, amazing mentor, And I'd be curious to know
Speaker 1: how that affected you. Yeah, I feel like I am
Speaker 1: like a professional mentor seeker, that's for sure. I will
Speaker 1: admit that. Yeah, I mean I really admire lots of
Speaker 1: people and I want to learn from them, And yeah,
Speaker 1: I've been blessed that they've wanted to teach me. There
Speaker 1: is great value in reaching out to and not being
Speaker 1: shy to do so. And you find that people are
Speaker 1: often happy to help someone who is earnestly, you know,
Speaker 1: wanting to improve themselves and a similar direction as themselves. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I think that, and you put your finger on it.
Speaker 1: In a lot of ways. Often someone will see themselves
Speaker 1: their younger selves in you, and there's a wonderful thing
Speaker 1: about being able to give back to others. None of
Speaker 1: our paths are easy, but in a way they can
Speaker 1: really help make the most of someone's pursuits. Oh I
Speaker 1: couldn't have said that better. Yeah, oh, yes, you could have.
Speaker 1: I think people listening to this episode are going to
Speaker 1: be like, wow, they are actually friends. Well it is true.
Speaker 1: If you are listening and you're thinking we were actually friends,
Speaker 1: we are absolutely totally friends. It's true. Yeah. I count
Speaker 1: myself very, very lucky to have Scott this friend. He's
Speaker 1: a guy, thankful friend, Thank you, thank you. Likewise likewise Yeah,
Speaker 1: So can we move on for a second to character strengths.
Speaker 1: You know, you talked about kind of the intersection of
Speaker 1: happiness and strengths. Can you unpack a little more of
Speaker 1: what are some of these potential strengths that we could
Speaker 1: be identifying in college students. We as professors, you know,
Speaker 1: sure so sure, you know, As we said before, because
Speaker 1: we have this structure and we see so many students
Speaker 1: come through our classroom, it's easy to put on blinders
Speaker 1: and look for very specific attributes that indicate to us, Okay,
Speaker 1: they have a talent for this, Okay, they have a
Speaker 1: talent maybe for something else, but they're here for another reason, okay,
Speaker 1: And like be able to sort of start categorizing and
Speaker 1: thinking about who's going to thrive in here and how
Speaker 1: and who might not thrive quite as well as richly,
Speaker 1: let's say, And if that is what we're doing, we're
Speaker 1: leaving out certain factors that can help the students that
Speaker 1: we that we work with, and I'd say even the
Speaker 1: people that we have the opportunity to interact with outside
Speaker 1: of the classroom. And that would be among many other
Speaker 1: elements character strengths. What are our strengths of character? What
Speaker 1: are those values in life that we have to help
Speaker 1: us to thrive. So if you look at and there
Speaker 1: there are a number of different assessments. So best known
Speaker 1: might be Strengths Finder in galap but the v end
Speaker 1: you know, it's I see it a lot in businesses
Speaker 1: and I think it's terrific, particularly in the workplace. But
Speaker 1: if you're talking about life overall, if you're talking about
Speaker 1: being in a classroom or not, or maybe the last
Speaker 1: classroom experience was fifty years ago, the idea of pursuing
Speaker 1: strengths of character can be particularly rich and helpful. Those
Speaker 1: strengths of character. You can find an assessment at via
Speaker 1: victor what is it Victor Indigo Alpha. Oh, that's what
Speaker 1: the I stands for. No, I've always wondered what it'
Speaker 1: stood for. Value as an action, right, Values in action exactly.
Speaker 1: So if you go to the Values in Action website
Speaker 1: can get a free assessment there. And what it is
Speaker 1: is it's not a measurement of how good you are,
Speaker 1: how bad you are. It's not a measurement of how
Speaker 1: smart you are or what your IQ is. It's just
Speaker 1: a measure of those strengths with what you thrive. So,
Speaker 1: for example, strength, some strengths in those twenty four are bravery.
Speaker 1: They are honesty. They are love and capacity to be loved.
Speaker 1: They are beauty, appreciation of beauty and mastery. They are justice,
Speaker 1: they are zest for life. And what we find is
Speaker 1: that people who are able to incorporate their strengths into
Speaker 1: their pursuits are far more likely to be engaged in
Speaker 1: those pursuits, whether they're in the classroom or in the workplace.
Speaker 1: Galloped the poll of strengths a number of years ago
Speaker 1: and founded those organizations that help people to use their
Speaker 1: strengths at work, those employees have a seventy three percent
Speaker 1: chance of being engaged. Wow, that's huge effect. It's huge,
Speaker 1: especially when you think about the organizations that emphasize shoring
Speaker 1: up weaknesses over using your strengths, and those organizations those
Speaker 1: people have a nine percent chance of being engaged in
Speaker 1: the workplace. Yeah, that's it's quite striking because it's just
Speaker 1: we're throwing out all these statistics. I'm going to make
Speaker 1: up a statistic probably ninety probably you just did so.
Speaker 1: I can probably ninety percent of businesses focus on the
Speaker 1: negative aspects and just trying to get rid of the
Speaker 1: negative as opposed to building on the strends. Probably, So
Speaker 1: that's its huge appliicate. Now I just made up that
Speaker 1: ninety percent. But that's just my gut is telling me.
Speaker 1: That sounds about right to me. I think your gut
Speaker 1: is spot on. Well. I mean, look, think about some
Speaker 1: of the great management gurus. Peter Drucker said that the
Speaker 1: greatest companies are teams are made up of the constellation
Speaker 1: of strengths. Now, he clearly wasn't referring to to the
Speaker 1: via the die is in action, nor was he referring
Speaker 1: to strengths finder, because this is well before either of
Speaker 1: those were available to us. But he saw the people
Speaker 1: who worked in their strengths and formed a team where
Speaker 1: people not only brought them together but appreciated the other
Speaker 1: people's strengths, because that's the tough part if your strength,
Speaker 1: and I think maybe one of the easy ways to
Speaker 1: do it. And this is not a strength thing, but
Speaker 1: if you're an extrovert and I'm an introvert, and you're
Speaker 1: sitting there thinking, why is this guy never talk I
Speaker 1: was supposed to thinking, I wonder what he's processing right
Speaker 1: now because he's listening really, really well. And after this
Speaker 1: meeting's done, I'm going to ask him or her what
Speaker 1: he heard, because I'm telling you something he's going to
Speaker 1: hear a lot more than I am, because all I
Speaker 1: think of as what to say next. Unless you get
Speaker 1: that kind of appreciation, you're not really realizing the benefits
Speaker 1: of that constellation of strengths. So it happens all the
Speaker 1: time in college campuses. Clearly, people thinking I actually just
Speaker 1: want to hang out with people who are like me,
Speaker 1: or I appreciate this person's strengths whether they know it
Speaker 1: or not, because they're like my strengths as opposed to
Speaker 1: thinking how do I put this team together and appreciate
Speaker 1: other people's strengths. Before that even happens, I just say
Speaker 1: to a student, figure out what your strengths are. Go
Speaker 1: to the VIA website, take the assessment, and when you
Speaker 1: find out that your strength is, say bravery, figure out
Speaker 1: a way to use it in a new way every day.
Speaker 1: Maybe it means asking a questioning class that you'll nervous
Speaker 1: to ask that doesn't seem quite right, but you're going
Speaker 1: to be brave enough to ask that question. Maybe bravery
Speaker 1: looks to you like writing a paper that's a little
Speaker 1: outside of the box, pushing that boundary a little bit,
Speaker 1: because for you, that's how you express bravery. For other people,
Speaker 1: that might be going in a political march or joining
Speaker 1: a political cause. It might be something like that. For
Speaker 1: others it might be a ropes course. Who knows. But
Speaker 1: the idea is if you're able to use it, maybe
Speaker 1: it's asking somebody out that you're nervous to ask out.
Speaker 1: You know, when you express that rate, you're far more
Speaker 1: likely to at least what Marty Seligman will say is,
Speaker 1: who was that? Marty? I think you said no I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: It was Alice Linley who said, experience what it is
Speaker 1: to be the real you. Well, I really liked that quote.
Speaker 1: I really like that quote. You just said, yeah, and
Speaker 1: it really has me thinking a lot. Let me give
Speaker 1: you one quick strength just because it might be a
Speaker 1: fun story. So just as an example, one other example
Speaker 1: of how students can use strengths, I had a student
Speaker 1: couple of years ago. She had just finished her toward
Speaker 1: doing the Navy, and she was assessed for her strengths,
Speaker 1: and she had her boyfriend get his strength assessed as well,
Speaker 1: and so for his birthday, she did a strengths date
Speaker 1: where one of his strengths was appreciation of beauty and mastering.
Speaker 1: So she did a date where she took them through
Speaker 1: a really lovely place for breakfast. She'd done them for
Speaker 1: a really nice walk in the park. She took them
Speaker 1: to the net Museum afterwards, and then they sat on
Speaker 1: the roof and watched the sunset. He was like, this
Speaker 1: was the best date I ever had. So being able
Speaker 1: to structure an experience like that for a friend or
Speaker 1: for a partner is a really wonderful gift. And she
Speaker 1: said it was the best day she'd ever had too
Speaker 1: because she just got to see him so wonderfully, wonderfully engaged. Well, well,
Speaker 1: so maybe on first States people should be giving each
Speaker 1: other the via. Hey, you know, you could do a
Speaker 1: lot worse, right, you do a lot worse and worrying
Speaker 1: about like your hair. It's a really good point. I
Speaker 1: spend way too much time worrying about my hair. Do
Speaker 1: you have magnificent hair because I spend so much time
Speaker 1: worrying about my hair? Hours and hours? Well, thank you man.
Speaker 1: So let me ask you about willpower. I think this
Speaker 1: is an important topic you cover in your book and
Speaker 1: something that kind of in a lot of ways is
Speaker 1: what enables our character. You know, we may have the
Speaker 1: potentiality for certain characters, but our lack of willpower might
Speaker 1: get in the way of that, right, Loly, no question.
Speaker 1: Do you see that among college students plays a role
Speaker 1: in their success? I'd say I see among everybody that
Speaker 1: I've worked with, both as a coach and as an instructor.
Speaker 1: But in some cases it is a key factor in success.
Speaker 1: You know, the capacity to do do what you know
Speaker 1: is best for you long term and forego what you
Speaker 1: want in the short term. That would be key for
Speaker 1: everyone from great athletes, to great world leaders, to great musicians,
Speaker 1: to great academics, great mothers, great fathers. Self control actually
Speaker 1: is one of the predictors for a healthy child. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: Self control for the parent is one of the great
Speaker 1: predictors for a healthy child because that parent can do
Speaker 1: it is right for their child. When it comes to
Speaker 1: students on campus, absolutely, and I think there are number
Speaker 1: of factors that come in. One of the greatest factors.
Speaker 1: And when we teach this class, we teach it as
Speaker 1: a kind of a part one Part two. Class is choice.
Speaker 1: Has to say college students have more choice vast majority.
Speaker 1: Ninety nine. I'm making this number up at ninety nine
Speaker 1: point plus percent. As college students have more choice. Second,
Speaker 1: they step put on campus, and they ever have in
Speaker 1: their entire life, right when they were in high school.
Speaker 1: We were all high school, were told what class to
Speaker 1: go to, when to be there, what was due, where
Speaker 1: we're eating, who we were eating with. And you wake
Speaker 1: up the next morning because you have to wake up
Speaker 1: at a certain time. You know where your breakfast is, right,
Speaker 1: so on and so forth. You get to college, you
Speaker 1: don't know where your dorm is, you don't know what
Speaker 1: classes you're going to take. You don't know what time
Speaker 1: those classes are, you don't know who you're going to
Speaker 1: have breakfast with. You don't even know who you're going
Speaker 1: to be sleeping with that first night. And I'm talking
Speaker 1: clearly about roommates. But you have all of these choices
Speaker 1: that you never had. Here's the thing with willpower. Willpower
Speaker 1: is depleted as the more choices you make. So if
Speaker 1: you wake up in the morning and high school you
Speaker 1: get down to the table and there's a bowl of
Speaker 1: cereals sitting there, you have not just made the choice
Speaker 1: between bagel, cereal, eggs, pancakes, waffles. So you haven't depleted
Speaker 1: to willpower when you go to high school because you
Speaker 1: jump on the bus, you walk the same path of day.
Speaker 1: It's not like, am I gonna take a subway today?
Speaker 1: Am I going to go with certain friends? Am I
Speaker 1: even going to go to class? Because if I don't,
Speaker 1: no one's going to know. So you haven't necessarily depleted
Speaker 1: your willpower in high school. But in college, by the
Speaker 1: time it's ten am, providing you decided not to hit
Speaker 1: the snooze button fifteen times, your willpower is depleted. And
Speaker 1: for a reference point, and by the way, you're in college, Like,
Speaker 1: what am I going to wear? I have to look
Speaker 1: like super fly because who knows what I'm going to
Speaker 1: run into today, and maybe I'm going to want to
Speaker 1: see that girl in my Science of Happiness class or
Speaker 1: that guy in my my CAM class, and I have
Speaker 1: to look good. This is the reason why. One of
Speaker 1: the reasons why Mark Zuckerberg always wears the same hoodie,
Speaker 1: or at least he has a billion of them. Why
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs always wore the same thing, Why Alverd Einstein
Speaker 1: were the same thing. Because they don't want they have
Speaker 1: to make the choices. Thus they say their willpower for
Speaker 1: other things, allowing them to focus. So for college students
Speaker 1: and will power, yeah, it gets trained super fast because
Speaker 1: it's the hit with all these choices, and by the
Speaker 1: time mid afternoon hits, evening hits the habits, the bad
Speaker 1: habits kick in. We rarely make bad decisions in the
Speaker 1: morning like we do in the evening. Our ability to
Speaker 1: work through and not procrastinate, for example, grows in the
Speaker 1: afternoon and evening as well. We eat less healthy in
Speaker 1: the afternoon evening because our willpower is drained. So for
Speaker 1: college students, yeah, it's a huge factor. That they don't
Speaker 1: think about very often. I'd say there are a couple
Speaker 1: of ways to there's a couple of shortcuts that they
Speaker 1: can build in to preserve that well power and to
Speaker 1: save it's when they really need it the most. That's
Speaker 1: a great lesson if you can impart that on the students,
Speaker 1: imparting and having them actually take advantage of it, or
Speaker 1: two different things. But here's the thing about the course,
Speaker 1: and I imagine you found this too, teaching the science
Speaker 1: and happiness. Some students who can look at it and go,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, that's amazing. I totally have to take
Speaker 1: advantage of that. And other students are going to go whatever, dude.
Speaker 1: But hopefully they'll look at the characters during this class
Speaker 1: and go, I'm going to try that on my next
Speaker 1: day one the optimis in class and go, all right,
Speaker 1: how am I going to explain the next bad things
Speaker 1: that happens to me? So that can maybe have a
Speaker 1: different style of dealing with bad things. You know. The
Speaker 1: hopes is that whether it's with the class or the course,
Speaker 1: I should say, or or the book, that people will
Speaker 1: find something. The snowflakes will find the woman's right for them.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's one thing, two things, and actually they can
Speaker 1: take a habit, they can create three things, four things,
Speaker 1: but I seriously that it's going to be all of them.
Speaker 1: So hopefully if what power works for you, wonderful, and
Speaker 1: if it doesn't, you'll find something else. Yeah, willpower doesn't
Speaker 1: work so well for me. I mean either it's not
Speaker 1: one of my character strengths because there I actually find
Speaker 1: it gets in the way of creativity, which is one
Speaker 1: of my character strengths. And curiosity. Ah interesting, if I
Speaker 1: think if you have too much willpower, you're going to
Speaker 1: like kind of ignore the seemingly irrelevant and miss out
Speaker 1: on the beautiful connections. But anyway, I starting to sound
Speaker 1: a little hippie. If so, I'll stop. Hey, and I
Speaker 1: wonder about that. Think about it. What if you're totally
Speaker 1: committed to keeping the blinders off, you're going to be like,
Speaker 1: how am I not going to allow myself to get
Speaker 1: the blinders onto? You know? How am I get to
Speaker 1: constantly allow myself to stay open to experience? That takes
Speaker 1: for power too, Because then for a lot of folks
Speaker 1: it's easier just to be like, Hey, I'm going to
Speaker 1: put my head nose of the grindstone get the good grade.
Speaker 1: Not worry about you know, creatived beated. That's for the
Speaker 1: hippies like that takes some that says take some stuff control.
Speaker 1: You know, that's actually a really good point. I'm going
Speaker 1: to rethink that. What's the difference between harmonious and obsessive passion? Oh? Look,
Speaker 1: who's asking me that question? As you passion itself? You
Speaker 1: know you should do if you're out there listening, you
Speaker 1: should google Scott Breakoff and articles on passion. You're too nice.
Speaker 1: You're too nice. I know that you have a lot
Speaker 1: of great stuff to say about it. So the things
Speaker 1: I'm interested in most are development of excellence and expertise
Speaker 1: in our life and how we can do so in
Speaker 1: a healthy way. And the study of passion, which has
Speaker 1: really been vibrant for the last twenty five years, particularly
Speaker 1: the University of Montreal. I think for me is one
Speaker 1: of the key elements when it comes to bringing together
Speaker 1: well being and excellence. The thing about passion is Bob
Speaker 1: Baloran has been doing so much of this research and
Speaker 1: his colleagues I really found there are two very distinctive
Speaker 1: pathways to pursue a passion. Now, a passion can be anything,
Speaker 1: almost anything, I believe that they've When he pulled five
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty five students University of Montreal, they came
Speaker 1: up with a list of well over one hundred passions.
Speaker 1: Because at first the students were saying, well, I don't
Speaker 1: know by the passion. When they realized that a passion
Speaker 1: is a strong desire to do something, and to do
Speaker 1: something at least eight and a half hours a week,
Speaker 1: they were like, wait, does that include having conversations with friends?
Speaker 1: Does that include gardening? Does that include cooking? Does that
Speaker 1: include skateboarding? It does, so all of a sudden, these
Speaker 1: passions can be to your earlier point. They can be
Speaker 1: so diverse that we may have them and not even
Speaker 1: know it. But the thing about passions that are so
Speaker 1: essential to bringing together well being and excellence is that
Speaker 1: these two roads are very distinctive. One is harmonious and
Speaker 1: one is what is terms obsessive. And the harmonious attributes
Speaker 1: of harmonious include intrinsic drivers. So you're doing something because
Speaker 1: you love it. It's super easy. I love looking at
Speaker 1: kids because they get up and they're five years old
Speaker 1: and they're like, I want to play with legos, Like
Speaker 1: that's usually an intrinsic motivation. They get up. The first
Speaker 1: thing I do is play Legos. The first thing I
Speaker 1: want to do is play in the sandbox. First thing
Speaker 1: I want to do is fingerpaint. The first thing I
Speaker 1: want to do is play piano. First thing I want
Speaker 1: to do is go out and play a sport. So
Speaker 1: a harmoniousassion, we can look at our kids and be like, yes,
Speaker 1: it's something you wake up looking forward to. An obsessive
Speaker 1: passion is different in that it's often driven by external circumstances.
Speaker 1: You do it because your parents want you to do it.
Speaker 1: You do it because the money is really good, You
Speaker 1: do it because the status it gives you in your culture,
Speaker 1: and those drivers can lead towards a very different passion
Speaker 1: that is far less healthy. So when we look at
Speaker 1: harmonious passions, we find that the results are that people
Speaker 1: tend to have higher levels of positive motion. They can
Speaker 1: they're more engaged, they can focus, they have better memory.
Speaker 1: Turn that's the wrong way to put it, but they
Speaker 1: retain more the information when it's harmonious memory, Thank you
Speaker 1: very much. What's the definition of the exactly? So there
Speaker 1: are all these wonderful benefits, but when you look at
Speaker 1: the folks who are obsessively passionate, they have much higher
Speaker 1: levels of negative emotion even you know when they're not
Speaker 1: only when they're doing the pursuit that they're passionate about,
Speaker 1: but for the rest of their day. So, for example,
Speaker 1: we looked at the Valerian looked at high school and
Speaker 1: college basketball players assess them for harmonious or obsessive passion.
Speaker 1: And those college basketball players are harmonious really enjoyed their practice,
Speaker 1: but then the rest of the day was better too.
Speaker 1: Those who are obsessive didn't enjoy practice, and the days
Speaker 1: they had practice, the rest of their day was worse.
Speaker 1: So it's not just about the one thing, it's about
Speaker 1: everything in their life. So when we pursue a harmonious
Speaker 1: passion with this opportunity not only to engage and do better,
Speaker 1: but to be happier, to be better friends, to have
Speaker 1: more relationships, well, when it's obsessed, if it tends to
Speaker 1: bring us down. And there's a huge rate to burnout
Speaker 1: when it comes to obsessive passions, far far, far far
Speaker 1: far greater than harmonious passions. But here's the bottom line,
Speaker 1: and this is what a lot of people will ask
Speaker 1: when we talk about this is, But don't you need
Speaker 1: to be obsessively passionate to really be great quote unquote
Speaker 1: great to be the best? And we're finding is for
Speaker 1: the most part, with very few exceptions. The studies seem
Speaker 1: to show that it's not the case that both types
Speaker 1: of passion lead to very very high levels of performance,
Speaker 1: but only one of them, the harmonious, also leads to
Speaker 1: fulfilling life. Yeah, Dan, just to clarify something between people,
Speaker 1: when you measure harmonious and obsessive between people, you can
Speaker 1: look at differences, but within a person, there there's no
Speaker 1: profile of a person who is zero percent obsessively passionate, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, every single one of us has a mix
Speaker 1: of the two, and it's all about getting the gears
Speaker 1: the relative ratio right. You're totally spot on, And it's
Speaker 1: such an important point to know that, just like so
Speaker 1: many things in our life, few of us are black
Speaker 1: or white in anything, and passion is exactly the same way.
Speaker 1: So one may recognize some obsessive passion as part of
Speaker 1: their path, some characteristics of the obsessive aspect, but that
Speaker 1: can be helpful to be able to recognize both and know, well,
Speaker 1: where am I being obsessive? Is it healthy for me?
Speaker 1: Can I shift a little bit more towards the harmonious?
Speaker 1: How's that really working out for me? As again, the
Speaker 1: snowflake that I am the strength to be unique, to
Speaker 1: pursue your own path. It's actually that's such an interesting
Speaker 1: one too, Scott. When we think about people who are
Speaker 1: admired on both sides of the aisle, so to speak,
Speaker 1: one can say that we have unique people or snowflakes,
Speaker 1: really both sides. You know, if we look at someone
Speaker 1: like Teddy Roosevelt. You know, one of the is I
Speaker 1: love about Roosevelt comes to uniqueness is that he wasn't
Speaker 1: just a president. He was a rough rider soldier, He
Speaker 1: was an environmentalist, start of the National Park system. He
Speaker 1: was a hard nosed, rough and tumble guy who loved
Speaker 1: rough sports in football, boxing, those kind of things. He's
Speaker 1: also a very very very very sick kid news young.
Speaker 1: You know, asthma was so bad he couldn't leave the house,
Speaker 1: couldn't have the window open. So here's this guy who
Speaker 1: had all these different things going. He was completely unique.
Speaker 1: Who look at someone like Maya Angelou very similar, so
Speaker 1: many different things happening, completely unique human being. There's a
Speaker 1: wonderful clip of Bruce Lee talking about how he discusses
Speaker 1: his pursuit of the martial arts and how martial arts
Speaker 1: to him is fully expressing himself and at a certain
Speaker 1: point just the words don't do him justice anymore, but
Speaker 1: it's clear that he has pursued things in a different way,
Speaker 1: different than everyone else has. So yes, I used snowflake
Speaker 1: in a very positive way to say, you know, we
Speaker 1: are unique people. Whether you're Ronald Reagan or you are
Speaker 1: Barack Obama, these are incredibly unique folks who have taken
Speaker 1: very brave steps that other people wouldn't have. Do you
Speaker 1: encourage any of your students to be unique but also
Speaker 1: to be conscious of others? Is just being unique the
Speaker 1: most really important thing? Well? Fortunately, you know. There are
Speaker 1: a number of topics that we discuss in the course
Speaker 1: in the book, and maybe the center of that is meaning.
Speaker 1: When it comes to essential drivers for thriving and meaning
Speaker 1: it can be defined many ways, but one of which
Speaker 1: is to feel that you are a part of something
Speaker 1: greater than yourself. Adam Grant when of your colleagues at
Speaker 1: Pen's talked about how we cultivate meaning, and certain ways
Speaker 1: include questions such as how does your work help the
Speaker 1: world be a better place? How does your work help
Speaker 1: other people around you? And when people consider those questions
Speaker 1: in relation to their work, whether it's firefighting, or being
Speaker 1: a parent or being an academician, we tend to get
Speaker 1: a sense it other people matter. How we affect other
Speaker 1: people matter, How we take care of people around us matter.
Speaker 1: Our place in the community matters, star place, but how
Speaker 1: we contribute to the community matters. So is it okay
Speaker 1: just to be unique? Well, I mean, but the question
Speaker 1: of how am I helping the world be a better place? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's important, and that starts to connect you to others.
Speaker 1: So no, it's not just about being unique. There many
Speaker 1: factors come in to play. Great thanks Dan, and I
Speaker 1: love all the factors that you talk about in combination
Speaker 1: in your book and I wish all the best with
Speaker 1: the book and hope that you can continue inspiring on
Speaker 1: today's youth. Thank you very much. Hey, it's a tremendous
Speaker 1: gift to be able to work with all these students
Speaker 1: every year. Heck, you know what, we take that back,
Speaker 1: it's a tremendous gift to be able to work with
Speaker 1: one student. The fact they get to work with any
Speaker 1: students at all is really fortunate. And now I have
Speaker 1: to thank you for letting me share what we're doing
Speaker 1: with all your listeners, because, hey, as I always say,
Speaker 1: it change one person for the better. If you help
Speaker 1: them thrive today, then we've done our work, done our job.
Speaker 1: Thanks again, well, you're doing great things, Scott, Thanks for
Speaker 1: having me on. Thanks Dan, thanks for listening to The
Speaker 1: Psychology Podcast with Doctor Scott barrk Kaufman. I hope you
Speaker 1: found this episode just as thought per booking and interesting
Speaker 1: as I did. If you'd like to read the show
Speaker 1: notes for this episode or hear past episodes, you can
Speaker 1: visit the Psychology Podcast dot com