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Speaker 1: Pushkin for So, I just have so many questions to

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Speaker 1: ask you about what you've been up to for this

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Speaker 1: past month. This is Katherine Price. Over the last few weeks,

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Speaker 1: she's become my new guru. I need a guru because

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Speaker 1: I'm on a mission, a mission to have fun. As

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Speaker 1: a kid, I used to have fun all the time.

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Speaker 1: I spent all day playing with friends, goofing around and

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Speaker 1: just doing lots of random activities that I enjoyed. But

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Speaker 1: as an adult, not so much. That's why I've turned

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Speaker 1: to Catherine. You see, Catherine is the author of a

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Speaker 1: new book called The Power of Fun, How to Feel

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Speaker 1: Alive Again, and I've asked her to use her expertise

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Speaker 1: to give me an emergency fun intervention or fun intervention

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Speaker 1: for short. So far, Catherine's taught me that fun, by definition,

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Speaker 1: requires a combination of playful, connected flow, and that those

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Speaker 1: three parts of an experience are wrecked when you're feeling distracted.

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Speaker 1: So my homework was to train my brain to focus

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Speaker 1: better by finding delights, those funny, beautiful, delightful things that

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Speaker 1: are out there all the time but we tend not

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Speaker 1: to notice. But today I'll be tackling a different problem

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Speaker 1: embarrassingly enough, even when I have time to focus and

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Speaker 1: be present, I often just can't think of anything fun

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Speaker 1: to do. I've sort of forgotten the kinds of things

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Speaker 1: I like and enjoy. Plus I'm often so exhausted these

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Speaker 1: days that a lot of the time I kind of

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Speaker 1: just want to vege on the couch. So today I'll

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Speaker 1: be rediscovering what feels fun and learning, as Catherine puts it,

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Speaker 1: to feel alive again. But even though that's the goal,

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Speaker 1: I'm worried there's a decent chance that my attempts at

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Speaker 1: finding fun might actually kill me. What's the worst that

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Speaker 1: can happen? Well, I guess you could give you actually

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Speaker 1: something No, no, I think like getting concussed, dying, But yeah,

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Speaker 1: or at the very least, might kill my voice to

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Speaker 1: do the heart and your to blame. You give loop

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Speaker 1: a bad name, and you play. So, with those slight

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Speaker 1: spoilers out there, welcome to Doctor Laurie Santos's Extreme Funtervention

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Speaker 1: Part two. Our minds are constantly telling us what to

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Speaker 1: do to be happy. But what if our minds are wrong?

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Speaker 1: What if our minds are lying to us, leading us

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Speaker 1: away from what will really make us happy? The good

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Speaker 1: news is that understanding the science of the mind can

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Speaker 1: point us all back in the right direction. You're listening

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Speaker 1: to the Happiness Lab for doctor Laurie Santos. I live

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Speaker 1: in Philadelphia, relatively close to the School River, which is

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Speaker 1: a famous rowing river, and I had a neighbor who

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Speaker 1: had been telling me how she'd been taking rowing lessons

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Speaker 1: and there were baby turtles in the river, and I'm like, what,

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Speaker 1: that sounds interesting. So a couple of years ago I

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Speaker 1: decided to try to learn to row. And her quest

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Speaker 1: to have fun enjoying guitar classes, drum practices, and swing

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Speaker 1: dancing workshops. She's an expert on pushing her boundaries in

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Speaker 1: order to experience more fun, and getting out on the

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Speaker 1: water was her most recent attempt. So I spent a

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Speaker 1: summer biking up to Boathouse Row every Thursday morning and

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Speaker 1: taking lessons from this guy named Brian, who was this

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Speaker 1: very funny rowing coach, very playfully sarcastic. Those mornings out

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Speaker 1: on the water were full of playfulness and connection with

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Speaker 1: coach Brian constantly joking with her through a ridiculous megaphone.

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Speaker 1: Somebody by the megaphone, like, I just loved it. Rowing

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Speaker 1: also gave Katherine lots of flow. She was consistently present

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Speaker 1: on the water, paying attention to her movements, so she

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Speaker 1: didn't tip over. With these three elements of playfulness, connection

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Speaker 1: and flow in place, rowing was fun, but don't be fooled.

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Speaker 1: Fun isn't always about bright skies and perfect sailing. Consider,

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Speaker 1: for example, the time Catherine went ahead with a row

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Speaker 1: despite the dark clouds forming, which was a dumb move.

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Speaker 1: There was nobody else on this river. Torrential downpour started,

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Speaker 1: but Catherine kept heading over to the spot where her

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Speaker 1: beloved baby turtles hung out. But there were no turtles

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Speaker 1: that day, because they're not idiots. Her oars were extra

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Speaker 1: slippery that day, and all of a sudden she tipped over.

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Speaker 1: One of those things where you know what's happening and

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Speaker 1: you cannot do anything about it. And I was like,

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Speaker 1: I am going into the school, which side note is like,

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Speaker 1: not a river you really want to swim in. The

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Speaker 1: occasional body fished out of this thing is not ideal.

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Speaker 1: Taking a front somersault, fully clothed into very cold, filthy

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Speaker 1: water in the middle of a huge storm sounds like

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Speaker 1: my absolute nightmare. But the thing was I actually was

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Speaker 1: having fun. Like in retrospect, I'm like, I was just

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Speaker 1: giddy when we got back to the dock and I

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Speaker 1: started announcing to everyone that I had fallen into the river.

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Speaker 1: As I cringed at the idea of looking stupid in

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Speaker 1: front of complete strangers, Catherine got to the moral of

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Speaker 1: her story. There's a lot of moments in life where

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Speaker 1: if you can embrace the absurdity of the objectively unpleasant situation,

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Speaker 1: it's actually pretty fun. For the next step of my

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Speaker 1: fun intervention, Catherine wanted me to follow her lead try

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Speaker 1: out a new hobby, ideally one that I'd be reasonably

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Speaker 1: bad at, in order to ensure that I experience those

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Speaker 1: juicy moments of absurd unpleasantness. And I reacted to this

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Speaker 1: suggestion with terror. As a busy adult, I haven't tried

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Speaker 1: out something completely new and challenging in a very, very

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Speaker 1: long time. And I'm guessing I'm not alone here. But

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Speaker 1: I also tend to beat myself up when I'm not

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Speaker 1: immediately good at something. Turns out, this combination of terror

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Speaker 1: and self criticism is yet another fun killer. I mean,

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Speaker 1: if you're self conscious, you can't let yourself go, and

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Speaker 1: you can't really be playful and it's harder to be connected.

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Speaker 1: But the biggest way our self judgment can impede fun

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Speaker 1: is by reducing our flow. Negative self talk clogs up

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Speaker 1: our brains inner monologues, with all those rapid fire thoughts

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Speaker 1: of oh my god, I suck so badly at this.

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Speaker 1: That's gonna not make it possible for you to be present.

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Speaker 1: And again, if you're not present, you can't be in flow.

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Speaker 1: And if you're not in flow, you can't have fun.

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Speaker 1: I did want to have more fun, so I reluctantly

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Speaker 1: agreed to Catherine's challenge. But I needed a way to

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Speaker 1: overcome all my angst about starting a new hobby from scratch.

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Speaker 1: So I decided to tag in a different kind of expert,

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Speaker 1: someone who's a pro at being a beginner. This frightening

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Speaker 1: email comes over from the elementary school. We're having an

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Speaker 1: apparent talent day. You know, can you come in and

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Speaker 1: do something? One fateful day, journalist Tom Vanderbilt got a

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Speaker 1: request that changed his whole approach to life. What you

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Speaker 1: need talent? Could you show off to a room of

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Speaker 1: twenty five first graders at his daughter's school. He was

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Speaker 1: a best selling author, But I couldn't really go in

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Speaker 1: and write a paragraph in front of a bunch of

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Speaker 1: kids in a class. We all have our job resumes,

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Speaker 1: but if you step away from you just your career achievements,

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Speaker 1: as important as they are, you know, what else are

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Speaker 1: you doing in your life? And I felt a little bit,

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Speaker 1: a little bit sparse. Tom had the painful realization that

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Speaker 1: he hadn't learned anything new in a long time, which

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Speaker 1: was ironic since Tom spent a lot of his time

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Speaker 1: chauffeuring his daughter from chess class to swim practice and

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Speaker 1: then piano lessons. While she was off having fun and

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Speaker 1: bill new skills, Tom sat there waiting for her class

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Speaker 1: to finish, feeling bored and mostly screwing around on his laptop.

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Speaker 1: Here I was taking her to all these sorts of lessons,

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Speaker 1: instilling in her you know how important it was, I thought,

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Speaker 1: to learn new things, to be as wide raging as

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Speaker 1: you can. And in my own life I had kind

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Speaker 1: of frozen in terms of learning these ambitious new skills.

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Speaker 1: You know, sometime many decades ago, you know, sort of

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Speaker 1: too late. Why bother, I'm never going to be that great.

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Speaker 1: Sort of felt like it was a bit hypocritical of

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Speaker 1: me to be telling her this, and not doing it myself.

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Speaker 1: Tom realized that, like many of us, he was suffering

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Speaker 1: from what Harvard psychologists Dan Gilbert calls the end of

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Speaker 1: history illusion. I think people often think they are the

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Speaker 1: finished person they are going to be at any moment.

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Speaker 1: Gilbert and his colleagues found that if you ask people, hey,

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Speaker 1: how much do you think your personality, your preferences, and

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Speaker 1: your core values are going to change in the next

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Speaker 1: ten years, most people say they're not going to change

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Speaker 1: all that much. They assume all these really core things

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Speaker 1: about their identity are fixed, that they're history in a sense,

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Speaker 1: has ended. But if you ask the same people, hey,

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Speaker 1: if you look back at yourself ten years ago, how

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Speaker 1: much have your values, personality, and preferences changed, People usually

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Speaker 1: admit that they're really different than they were a decade ago,

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Speaker 1: that they've changed a lot. This is the end of

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Speaker 1: history illusion. We don't think we're going to change and

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Speaker 1: grow much, but we're wrong. I don't have to be

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Speaker 1: stuck as this person that doesn't know how to do X,

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Speaker 1: Y and Z. I can start to try to do

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Speaker 1: those things even though I'm middle aged. That's why Tom

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Speaker 1: decided to devote the next few years to becoming a

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Speaker 1: professional beginner to picking up all the tricky new skills

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Speaker 1: he never got around to learning before. It's also why

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Speaker 1: he's going to try to convince me that face planting

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Speaker 1: into the water over and over again might just be

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Speaker 1: the thing I need for the next step of my

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Speaker 1: funtervention surveys. One of those great things where even the

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Speaker 1: whiteouts are quite fun. The happiness Lab will be right back.

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Speaker 1: I use the example of the movie The Queen's Gambit,

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Speaker 1: which I thought was a great film, very popular film

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Speaker 1: on Netflix. It seems like everyone saw that. Tom Vanderbilt

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Speaker 1: finds it a bit sad that people devoted hours and

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Speaker 1: hours to watching a drama about someone who learns to

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Speaker 1: play chess instead of watching The Queen's Gabbitt. If you

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Speaker 1: tried to take five or six hours of chess instruction,

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Speaker 1: you could actually pick up a fair amount of the game.

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Speaker 1: After years on the sidelines watching his daughter learned stuff,

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Speaker 1: he decided to get involved too. I signed up a

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Speaker 1: coach of all things to try to teach her to

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Speaker 1: play chess, and then I jumped on, which was a

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Speaker 1: bit strange. You had these two beginners that were separated

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Speaker 1: by four decades. Tom didn't stop there He learned how

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Speaker 1: to sing, how to draw, how to deep water swim,

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Speaker 1: how to juggle, how to surf, and, since he ended

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Speaker 1: up losing his wedding ring wall surfing, how to make jewelry.

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Speaker 1: He chronicled all this in a book called Beginners, The

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Speaker 1: Joy and Transformative Power of Lifelong Learning. Tom says it's

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Speaker 1: less of a how to book and more of a

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Speaker 1: why too book, and the why has a lot to

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Speaker 1: do with the fact that learning can make us feel

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Speaker 1: way more present. Being a beginner is almost by definition mindful,

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Speaker 1: because you go into an activity really knowing nothing. You know,

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Speaker 1: you're you're lost, You're you're sort of clueless, and that demands,

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Speaker 1: you know, almost total attention. And that also felt very

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Speaker 1: powerful to me, because you know, this idea, especially in

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Speaker 1: contemporary society, of being so endlessly distracted. You know, I

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Speaker 1: would draw for three hours and it felt like ten minutes,

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Speaker 1: and just that having that sense of deep engagement was

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Speaker 1: also really refreshing. Being an amateur also brought Tom the

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Speaker 1: excitement that comes from novelty. He had to learn about

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Speaker 1: ocean waves and musical scales and the bendable properties of metals.

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Speaker 1: The freshness of all these new topics made it really

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Speaker 1: easy to focus. I equated in the book to sort

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Speaker 1: of falling in love. Fittingly, the word amateur comes from

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Speaker 1: the Italian amatore to love, and even that more pujoy

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Speaker 1: worative sounding term for a beginner, dilettante, comes from the

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Speaker 1: Latin delectate to delight. And if you listen to my

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Speaker 1: last episode, you know experiencing delight is pretty good for

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Speaker 1: your happiness. You're just plunging into this new world with

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Speaker 1: new lingo, new equipment. You're moving your body in new

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Speaker 1: ways that you're thinking in new ways, and I feel

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Speaker 1: like your brain is sort of on fire. And the

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Speaker 1: science shows that firing up your brain in this way

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Speaker 1: is probably a good thing. Research by the psychologist Denise

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Speaker 1: Park has found that learning new skills may help prevent

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Speaker 1: the usual cognitive decline that comes as we age. She

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Speaker 1: had groups of adults learn a skill collectively in a class,

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Speaker 1: and she had other groups of adults get together and

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Speaker 1: just socialize. The older adults who took a class on

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Speaker 1: photography or quilting did significantly better on tests of memory

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Speaker 1: and processing speed than adults who merely got together. I

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Speaker 1: find these results really striking. I mean, you wouldn't think

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Speaker 1: that learning a specific skill like how to stitch or

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Speaker 1: when to adjust a shutter speed would have a big

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Speaker 1: effect on more important general cognitive abilities. We mostly just

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Speaker 1: start new things because we think they'll be fun, But

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Speaker 1: becoming a beginner and a random activity seems to give

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Speaker 1: us a bigger cognitive leg up than we realize. But

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Speaker 1: hobbies like these don't just boost our brains. Tom found

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Speaker 1: that his new pursuits also had a surprisingly positive effect

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Speaker 1: on his sense of personal identity. There's this interesting thing

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Speaker 1: that happens when you take up these skills that in

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Speaker 1: the beginning you're thinking of them purely as a verb.

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Speaker 1: I'm trying to surf. I'm trying to do this. But

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Speaker 1: then at some point feel comfortable to shift to the

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Speaker 1: noun phase and you say, you know, I'm a singer,

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Speaker 1: I'm a surfer. I've expanded instantly the sensation of who

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Speaker 1: I am, and the science shows that this self expansion

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Speaker 1: can enhance something else that's known to boost our happiness,

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Speaker 1: our relationships. Couples who participate in novel challenging activities together

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Speaker 1: experience boosts in relationship satisfaction. The fun that comes from

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Speaker 1: being a beginner seems to be contagious. But the biggest

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Speaker 1: benefit of becoming a beginner was something I really needed

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Speaker 1: for my own funder mention. Learning a new skill is

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Speaker 1: a great way to fight all our self judgment and perfectionism.

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Speaker 1: I like to quote the writer GK. Chesterton has said,

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Speaker 1: anything worth doing is worth doing badly. Tom's book chronicles

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Speaker 1: lots of cases when we learn best when we're doing

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Speaker 1: activities that teeter just on the edge of what we

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Speaker 1: find impossible. He saw this firsthand when he started hanging

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Speaker 1: out with a population that finds lots of things impossible,

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Speaker 1: a group you might consider to be the ultimate beginners, babies.

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Speaker 1: I spent some time with doctor Karen Adolph at NYU

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Speaker 1: studying how infants learn to walk and to move, and

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Speaker 1: one of the keys to this learning process is failure.

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Speaker 1: I mean, they fail a lot. Kids have been photographed

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Speaker 1: falling up to seventy times an hour, so we should

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Speaker 1: just embrace failure. The problem, of course, is that failure

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Speaker 1: doesn't really feel good, which is why Tom practices self compassion,

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Speaker 1: that act of recognizing that you're human and talking to

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Speaker 1: yourself compassionately instead of like a critical drill sergeant Larger

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Speaker 1: than the physical obstacle is that mental obstacle. I think

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Speaker 1: positive self talk is a key strategy in all this.

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Speaker 1: As I heard Tom talk more about cultivating positive self

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Speaker 1: talk and the benefits that come from embracing failure, I

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Speaker 1: decided to choose a hobby for my funtervention that, at

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Speaker 1: least for me, really felt like it was on the

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Speaker 1: edge of impossible, something I thought I definitely have no

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Speaker 1: possible way of being good at. And since it was summertime,

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Speaker 1: I also liked the idea of an activity that involved

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Speaker 1: hitting the beach, and so I decided that I am

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Speaker 1: middle aged, mostly out of shape, i'vey towered dwelling professor

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Speaker 1: with bad knees and no coordination, was going to try surfing.

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Speaker 1: I announced my decision to Tom, explaining how sure I

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Speaker 1: was that I would absolutely suck at the sport. Have

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Speaker 1: you ever actually tried to surf before? Like? So, no?

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Speaker 1: Why like this race as an interesting point that you're

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Speaker 1: you're saying you know you're going to be bad at it,

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Speaker 1: which is already that negative self talk coming up? All right, touche,

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Speaker 1: I was already admitting defeat in my head, or i'd

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Speaker 1: even gott and started. You really don't know how you're

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Speaker 1: going to be because you don't know what that thing is.

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Speaker 1: But you may actually try it and discover that you're

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Speaker 1: actually adept at it, or that you take to it

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Speaker 1: more than you thought you could. Maybe Tom was right.

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Speaker 1: Maybe I would be better at this than I expected.

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Speaker 1: Maybe I'd be so good at surfing that I dropped

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Speaker 1: the whole podcasting thing and just become a full time

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Speaker 1: beach bunny. Maybe I'd be a total natural on the board.

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Speaker 1: That's probably how it's going to go, right Tom, I

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Speaker 1: wasn't able to get up on the board on my

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Speaker 1: first afternoon out. I spent a lot of time on

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Speaker 1: my knees, you know, sort of almost standing. I spent

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Speaker 1: a lot of time falling. Your surfing is a very

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Speaker 1: difficult activity. The ocean is very dynamic place. You are

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Speaker 1: probably going to fail. That wasn't the rounding endorsement I

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Speaker 1: was expecting. I'm not going to lie, I'm not going

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Speaker 1: to sugarcoat it. You're going to look fullish. You might

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Speaker 1: get hurt, but we have the ability to get back

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Speaker 1: up and move on. Apparently I'd picked an activity that

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Speaker 1: really would test my ability to be self compassionate in

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Speaker 1: the face of sucking badly, but Tom still thought I

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Speaker 1: should go for it because sucking badly was kind of

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Speaker 1: the point. What do you have to lose? In fact,

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Speaker 1: you have to gain quite a bit, I would argue.

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Speaker 1: Surfing badly is still a very fun activity that will

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Speaker 1: bring you joy. You don't have to be amazing at it.

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Speaker 1: Immediately after my chat with Tom, fate seemed to intervene.

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Speaker 1: My college friend Lucy texted me her family was headed

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Speaker 1: to a nearby beach house. Beach, of course, meant waves

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Speaker 1: and waves were just the thing I needed for the

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Speaker 1: next step of my Funtervention. I asked Lucy if she

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Speaker 1: joined me for a surf lesson, let me think about it.

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Speaker 1: That was her noncommittal response. Actually, she followed up, my

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Speaker 1: husband says I have to do this, so I'm in.

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Speaker 1: Before she could change her mind, I went online and

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Speaker 1: found the Little Compton Surf Shop, a small, family run place.

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Speaker 1: What I liked most about this particular surf shop was

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Speaker 1: the huge quote on their web page that read, the

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Speaker 1: best surfer out there is the one that's how the

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Speaker 1: most fun. I was ready to be just that best surfer.

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Speaker 1: I booked a lesson for two Operation fun Intervention surfing

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Speaker 1: Safari was on, and you'll get to hear test how

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Speaker 1: it went when the happiness lad returns in a Mormentos

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Speaker 1: aren't too big. Yeah. One warm August morning, I headed

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Speaker 1: to Rhode Island with my good friend from college, Lucy Bisignano,

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Speaker 1: armed with her social support, a beach towel, a wetsuit,

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Speaker 1: and the strongest hair band I own. I was ready

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Speaker 1: to become the embodiment of the immortal words of George

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Speaker 1: Bernard's shaw that man progresses in all things by making

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Speaker 1: a fool of himself. Yeah, truck, she's recording. Oh, it's

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Speaker 1: like really bad. Actually feel We met our surf instructors

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Speaker 1: for the day, and I handed my recording gear off

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Speaker 1: to Lucy's daughter, Alice, who agreed to act as my

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Speaker 1: guest producer, or at least to try to. The wind

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Speaker 1: wasn't really helping us all that much. Perfect. After some

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Speaker 1: safety instructions, warm up jumping jack's, and practice pop ups

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Speaker 1: on the shore, we grabbed our boards and paddled out

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Speaker 1: into the sea. My lesson was amazing, not because I

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Speaker 1: caught a bunch of killer waves Like Tom Vanderbilt. I

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Speaker 1: didn't really figure out how to stand up on the board.

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Speaker 1: During that first lesson, I also wiped out pretty badly tried.

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Speaker 1: I got more salt water up my nose in that

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Speaker 1: hour and a half lesson than I have in my

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Speaker 1: entire life. These things should have felt unpleasant, but they didn't.

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Speaker 1: The whole experience was so fun. Unlike with most other

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Speaker 1: activities I've done, I was able to focus not on

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Speaker 1: the product being able to catch a huge wave, but

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Speaker 1: on the process. How it felt to be lying on

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Speaker 1: the board, how I was balancing better and better as

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Speaker 1: the waves rolled by, how fun it was to chat

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Speaker 1: with my surf instructor, and just how nice it felt

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Speaker 1: to be in the sun and the waves on a

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Speaker 1: perfect summer day. I expected my arms and legs to

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Speaker 1: be sore afterwards, and they were for days actually, But

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Speaker 1: the thing that hurt the most after my lesson was

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Speaker 1: my face from smiling and laughing so much. I was

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Speaker 1: excited to tell my guru, Catherine Price, about my fun

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Speaker 1: interventions surfing success, that I did something that I was

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Speaker 1: really bad at and that at times was absurdly unpleasant,

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Speaker 1: but that it wound up being one of the most

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Speaker 1: fun things I've done in a long time. But Katherine

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Speaker 1: didn't want me to rest on my laurels. She thought

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Speaker 1: it was now time to move on to the final

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Speaker 1: step of my fun intervention, discovering ways to find more

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Speaker 1: everyday fun. My first surfing lesson was a total blast,

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Speaker 1: but as a busy professor, I probably couldn't spend every

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Speaker 1: day driving across state lines to hit the waves, which

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Speaker 1: raised a question, how could I start finding more fun

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Speaker 1: each and every day. So the universal definition of fun,

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Speaker 1: I would argue, is that it's a state of playful,

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Speaker 1: connected flow. But each of us find that state through

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Speaker 1: different things, and something that you find fun, I might

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Speaker 1: not find fun at all, and vice versa. That is

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Speaker 1: the purpose of what Catherine calls the fun audit, examining

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Speaker 1: your own personal fun history. Catherine recommends getting a notebook

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Speaker 1: and journaling about pastimes in which you experienced true fun.

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Speaker 1: What were those so fun moments that you treasure, list

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Speaker 1: them out and analyze them in detail. Who was there,

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Speaker 1: what was the setting, what were you doing? Dig into

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Speaker 1: them like a private investor to gator. And once you

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Speaker 1: have that, once you have a sense of the people

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Speaker 1: and the activities in the settings that often are associated

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Speaker 1: with fun for you, you can go to the next level,

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Speaker 1: which is what I call figuring out your fun factors,

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Speaker 1: and those are the characteristics of those people, or those settings,

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Speaker 1: or those activities that are in some way responsible for

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Speaker 1: the fun. Doing my own personal fun audit with Catherine

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00:21:30,476 --> 00:21:34,156
Speaker 1: was perhaps not surprisingly kind of fun. I told her

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Speaker 1: about goofy Halloween parties that I had with my grad

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Speaker 1: school roommates, trips to a Boardwalk video arcade with my husband,

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Speaker 1: the time my producer Ryan and I were unexpectedly given

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Speaker 1: a rental sports car and got to drive around San

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Speaker 1: Francisco listening to Duran Duran on repeat, and one of

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Speaker 1: my most treasured so fun memories, which happened when I

395
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Speaker 1: traveled to Texas for a conference a few years ago.

396
00:21:55,236 --> 00:21:58,676
Speaker 1: So there's this movie theater in Austin called the Alamo Drafthouse.

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Speaker 1: They have a whole set of things called Eighties Singalongs

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Speaker 1: where they play music videos from the eighties that they've

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Speaker 1: edited to have the text. So it's kind of like

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Speaker 1: carrio y where you can see what the lyrics are,

401
00:22:11,516 --> 00:22:14,516
Speaker 1: but you're supposed to sing over the music videos, and

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00:22:14,596 --> 00:22:17,876
Speaker 1: they give you like eighties gear and glow sticks and

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Speaker 1: like inflatable microphones and all these things and this is

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00:22:21,516 --> 00:22:24,116
Speaker 1: like the most fun I've had in my life. So

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00:22:24,196 --> 00:22:26,156
Speaker 1: these are just like, oh my gosh, she's got pictures,

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Speaker 1: some images. So these are my grad students. You can

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Speaker 1: see the costumes, inflatable mics and things like that. This

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Speaker 1: is me, you see because a green inflatable guitar and

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Speaker 1: a pink hair bow. Yes, that looks amazing. Analyzing the

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Speaker 1: common features of all these events, looking for what Catherine

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Speaker 1: calls the fun factors, I noticed a few important commonalities.

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00:22:46,916 --> 00:22:49,956
Speaker 1: All these fun times were social, and most of them

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Speaker 1: had an active element, like dancing or moving my body.

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00:22:53,756 --> 00:22:56,716
Speaker 1: There was also a lot of spontaneity involved, like trying

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00:22:56,756 --> 00:22:59,836
Speaker 1: something new or traveling to a new place my so

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00:23:00,076 --> 00:23:03,996
Speaker 1: fun activities also involved a healthy dose of absurdity, think

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Speaker 1: inflatable microphones or getting a ridiculous sports car, or the

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00:23:07,716 --> 00:23:11,316
Speaker 1: crazy costumes I had eighties sing along. But there was

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Speaker 1: one specific fun factor that really surprised me. It seems

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Speaker 1: like one of my fun factors that I wouldn't have

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00:23:16,436 --> 00:23:19,356
Speaker 1: expected actually is music, which is surprising because I'm not

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Speaker 1: musically inclined at all. I don't play an instrument. I

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00:23:21,836 --> 00:23:24,036
Speaker 1: don't think of myself as a good singer. But when

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00:23:24,036 --> 00:23:26,916
Speaker 1: I think to moments of peakue fun, they have this

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00:23:26,956 --> 00:23:30,636
Speaker 1: element of music. Finding surprises like these is just the

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Speaker 1: sort of insight a fun audit can bring, and everyone's

427
00:23:33,356 --> 00:23:35,996
Speaker 1: audit it's going to look different. You might detest music

428
00:23:35,996 --> 00:23:38,956
Speaker 1: in costumes, but might really love being physical, or being

429
00:23:38,956 --> 00:23:41,636
Speaker 1: out in nature or taking risks. The key is to

430
00:23:41,636 --> 00:23:44,556
Speaker 1: figure out the specific fun factors that make up your

431
00:23:44,556 --> 00:23:48,156
Speaker 1: own personal recipe for fun. But Catherine's found that we

432
00:23:48,196 --> 00:23:52,436
Speaker 1: also need to analyze are anti fun factors. They're characteristics

433
00:23:52,476 --> 00:23:55,196
Speaker 1: that if those characteristics are present in an experience, you're

434
00:23:55,236 --> 00:23:57,196
Speaker 1: probably not going to have fun. And I think it's

435
00:23:57,316 --> 00:24:00,596
Speaker 1: very important to put some attention into identifying them because

436
00:24:00,596 --> 00:24:03,116
Speaker 1: in a lot of cases, other people might find them fun,

437
00:24:03,236 --> 00:24:05,356
Speaker 1: and you might find yourself getting drag belonged to these

438
00:24:05,356 --> 00:24:08,116
Speaker 1: experiences and then wondering why you never had fun. Thinking

439
00:24:08,116 --> 00:24:10,716
Speaker 1: about my own experiences, I realize that one of my

440
00:24:10,796 --> 00:24:14,636
Speaker 1: key anti fund factors is competition. If there are games

441
00:24:14,636 --> 00:24:17,276
Speaker 1: that we're playing that are cooperative or that are just

442
00:24:17,396 --> 00:24:20,436
Speaker 1: about the absurdity of the game or something, I'm really

443
00:24:20,476 --> 00:24:23,396
Speaker 1: into it. But when a game has like obvious winners

444
00:24:23,396 --> 00:24:26,996
Speaker 1: and losers, it's like less fun. For me. Just as

445
00:24:26,996 --> 00:24:30,076
Speaker 1: with fun factors, your own anti fund factors are going

446
00:24:30,116 --> 00:24:33,276
Speaker 1: to be really personal. You might love competition, but to

447
00:24:33,276 --> 00:24:36,396
Speaker 1: test the beach or getting dirty, or any activities that

448
00:24:36,436 --> 00:24:39,276
Speaker 1: involve a lot of preparation or equipment. There are lots

449
00:24:39,276 --> 00:24:41,796
Speaker 1: of things that could be an anti fun factor. And

450
00:24:41,876 --> 00:24:44,196
Speaker 1: that's why it's so important to put time into thinking

451
00:24:44,276 --> 00:24:46,556
Speaker 1: about what you liked and didn't like in the past,

452
00:24:46,876 --> 00:24:49,156
Speaker 1: because the better you understand these things, the easier it

453
00:24:49,196 --> 00:24:51,556
Speaker 1: will be for you to spend your time wisely, frankly.

454
00:24:51,716 --> 00:24:53,796
Speaker 1: And if you can understand that, then you can make

455
00:24:53,836 --> 00:24:56,156
Speaker 1: different choices about how you're going to spend your leisure time,

456
00:24:56,196 --> 00:24:58,196
Speaker 1: which well we do have I think more available to

457
00:24:58,276 --> 00:24:59,956
Speaker 1: us than we realize, because we're wasting a lot of

458
00:24:59,956 --> 00:25:02,596
Speaker 1: it right now, it is limited. I thought back to

459
00:25:02,596 --> 00:25:04,596
Speaker 1: how I often spend my own free time. When I

460
00:25:04,636 --> 00:25:07,956
Speaker 1: get a break, I tend to do something passive, like

461
00:25:08,156 --> 00:25:11,316
Speaker 1: plopping down on the and watching Netflix or reading a book.

462
00:25:12,076 --> 00:25:15,516
Speaker 1: Leisure activities like that are relaxing, but they're definitely not

463
00:25:15,676 --> 00:25:18,996
Speaker 1: fun in the playful, connected, flow inducing sense, and they

464
00:25:19,076 --> 00:25:21,716
Speaker 1: usually don't involve almost any of the fun factors I

465
00:25:21,796 --> 00:25:25,076
Speaker 1: just identified my fun audit revealed that to get more

466
00:25:25,116 --> 00:25:27,316
Speaker 1: everyday fun, I need to be doing more stuff that

467
00:25:27,436 --> 00:25:30,716
Speaker 1: involves music, or having friends around, or taking part in

468
00:25:30,756 --> 00:25:34,676
Speaker 1: activities that feel a bit more physical or spontaneous. I

469
00:25:34,716 --> 00:25:37,236
Speaker 1: also need to find ways to recreate that sing along

470
00:25:37,276 --> 00:25:40,076
Speaker 1: from my Texas trip, which was a fun factor that

471
00:25:40,196 --> 00:25:43,916
Speaker 1: Catherine supported more than I had expected. You and I

472
00:25:43,956 --> 00:25:46,436
Speaker 1: clearly share a lot of fun factors, like a lot

473
00:25:46,476 --> 00:25:48,476
Speaker 1: of them, because that looks like my dream fun as

474
00:25:48,596 --> 00:25:50,836
Speaker 1: I want to be there right now. And that's when

475
00:25:50,876 --> 00:25:53,396
Speaker 1: Catherine got the idea for the final step in my

476
00:25:53,476 --> 00:25:56,996
Speaker 1: fun intervention. Since eighties sing along seemed to be the

477
00:25:57,036 --> 00:26:00,756
Speaker 1: magical confluence of all my fun factors at once. Catherine

478
00:26:00,756 --> 00:26:03,956
Speaker 1: thought it would be good, purely for scientific purposes, of course,

479
00:26:04,396 --> 00:26:07,596
Speaker 1: to experience that true fun moment right there in my house.

480
00:26:08,276 --> 00:26:11,676
Speaker 1: Luckily happened to have some old inflatable microphones from that

481
00:26:11,716 --> 00:26:14,676
Speaker 1: trip lying around. I just want to be with you.

482
00:26:15,916 --> 00:26:18,716
Speaker 1: We were both a little rusty, but our impromptu sing

483
00:26:18,716 --> 00:26:22,756
Speaker 1: along was awesome. What says You've been got our spur

484
00:26:22,796 --> 00:26:25,076
Speaker 1: of the moment sing along only last an hour or so,

485
00:26:25,756 --> 00:26:27,836
Speaker 1: but having that moment of true fun right in the

486
00:26:27,876 --> 00:26:30,756
Speaker 1: middle of my day wound up, making me feel totally

487
00:26:30,796 --> 00:26:35,636
Speaker 1: alive for days. Oddly enough, taking a short break to

488
00:26:35,716 --> 00:26:38,556
Speaker 1: privately croon like a rock star made me feel even

489
00:26:38,596 --> 00:26:42,076
Speaker 1: more productive through the rest of my work week, never

490
00:26:49,036 --> 00:26:51,596
Speaker 1: realizing my love of sing alongs also took me right

491
00:26:51,596 --> 00:26:54,556
Speaker 1: back to where the story began. As a kid, I

492
00:26:54,596 --> 00:26:57,076
Speaker 1: was obsessed with singing songs from the Peter Pan Musical.

493
00:26:57,836 --> 00:27:00,796
Speaker 1: Back then, I thought I'd never grow up. I believed

494
00:27:00,836 --> 00:27:03,636
Speaker 1: I'd never turn my back on fun. I never thought

495
00:27:03,676 --> 00:27:06,956
Speaker 1: adult me would prioritize work and productivity over the delights

496
00:27:06,996 --> 00:27:10,676
Speaker 1: of moving around. Turns out that wise fun loving kid

497
00:27:10,956 --> 00:27:14,196
Speaker 1: wasn't entirely lost. She was just hidden below the surface.

498
00:27:14,876 --> 00:27:17,396
Speaker 1: All it took was a fun intervention and an inflatable

499
00:27:17,436 --> 00:27:21,516
Speaker 1: microphone to set her free. I hope hearing about the

500
00:27:21,516 --> 00:27:23,916
Speaker 1: power of fun inspires you to figure out some ways

501
00:27:23,956 --> 00:27:27,636
Speaker 1: that you can increase playfulness, connection, and flow. Why don't

502
00:27:27,636 --> 00:27:29,516
Speaker 1: you take some time to think about the moments you

503
00:27:29,556 --> 00:27:33,156
Speaker 1: remember is so fun? Do your own fun audit, and

504
00:27:33,276 --> 00:27:35,996
Speaker 1: make sure you also pay attention to activities that currently

505
00:27:36,036 --> 00:27:38,556
Speaker 1: pass for fun in your life but don't actually feel

506
00:27:38,556 --> 00:27:41,516
Speaker 1: all that good. By taking time to identify your own

507
00:27:41,556 --> 00:27:45,116
Speaker 1: personal fun factors, no matter how surprising, you can better

508
00:27:45,196 --> 00:27:47,996
Speaker 1: understand what they are and proactively seek them out in

509
00:27:48,036 --> 00:27:50,756
Speaker 1: your daily life. You can even find some new hobbies

510
00:27:50,836 --> 00:27:53,676
Speaker 1: that make you feel a little bit more alive. And

511
00:27:53,756 --> 00:27:55,796
Speaker 1: the science shows that getting more fun in your life

512
00:27:55,876 --> 00:27:58,436
Speaker 1: isn't justest going to be fun. It can also increase

513
00:27:58,476 --> 00:28:01,796
Speaker 1: your productivity. And as I saw firsthand during my surf lesson,

514
00:28:02,316 --> 00:28:04,516
Speaker 1: making more time for fun can also help you be

515
00:28:04,676 --> 00:28:07,636
Speaker 1: a little bit more compassionate with yourself, which is something

516
00:28:07,796 --> 00:28:11,836
Speaker 1: we all need these days. And so that's a rap

517
00:28:11,876 --> 00:28:14,436
Speaker 1: for Season three of The Happiness Lab. But we'll be

518
00:28:14,436 --> 00:28:16,756
Speaker 1: back in a few months with more science based tips

519
00:28:16,836 --> 00:28:19,796
Speaker 1: that you can use to feel better. In the meantime,

520
00:28:19,916 --> 00:28:22,596
Speaker 1: I'll be setting aside my podcast Mike to get in

521
00:28:22,676 --> 00:28:26,836
Speaker 1: some quality time with my inflatable mic instead. Catherine. Let's

522
00:28:26,876 --> 00:28:35,996
Speaker 1: do this than do you you? Now? I get? Three?

523
00:28:36,836 --> 00:28:44,196
Speaker 1: First A Soloman Yeah, yeah, thanks to you. Thanks to you,

524
00:28:44,396 --> 00:28:48,716
Speaker 1: Now I get Yeah. You should know now I get.

525
00:28:53,156 --> 00:28:55,836
Speaker 1: The Happiness Lab is co written and produced by Ryan Delley.

526
00:28:56,116 --> 00:28:59,716
Speaker 1: Our original music was composed by Zachary Silver, with additional scoring,

527
00:28:59,836 --> 00:29:03,516
Speaker 1: mixing and mastering by Evan Biola. Joseph Fridman checked our

528
00:29:03,556 --> 00:29:07,556
Speaker 1: facts Sophie Crane mckibbon edited our scripts. Emily Anne Vaughan

529
00:29:07,716 --> 00:29:11,756
Speaker 1: offered additional productions for it Special thanks to Miela Belle,

530
00:29:11,996 --> 00:29:17,236
Speaker 1: Carl mcgliori, Heather Faine, Maggie Taylor, Daniella Lucarne, Maya Kanig,

531
00:29:17,356 --> 00:29:21,836
Speaker 1: Nicole Morano, Eric Sandler, Royston Berserve, Jacob Weisberg, and my

532
00:29:21,916 --> 00:29:24,796
Speaker 1: agent Ben Davis. That Penus Lab is brought to you

533
00:29:24,836 --> 00:29:28,756
Speaker 1: by Pushkin Industries and me, Doctor Laurie Santos