Speaker 1: Pushkin the Happiness Lab. Listeners today, you're in for a
Speaker 1: special treat. If you're a regular listener of this podcast,
Speaker 1: you've probably already gotten a chance to hear from my
Speaker 1: good friend, the psychologist Ethan Cross. In fact, Ethan just
Speaker 1: visited the show as part of our recent how To season,
Speaker 1: where he gave us his top tips for hacking negative emotions.
Speaker 1: Lots of these ideas come from his new book Shift,
Speaker 1: Managing Your Emotions so they don't manage you. But in
Speaker 1: that interview we only got to scratch the surface of
Speaker 1: the cool work that Ethan does in his Emotion and
Speaker 1: Self Control Lab at the University of Michigan. So to
Speaker 1: mark the publication of his new book, Ethan asked me
Speaker 1: to join him on stage for a live recording of
Speaker 1: this podcast at Choate Rosemary Hall, an independent school not
Speaker 1: too far from my hometown in New Haven, Connecticut. In
Speaker 1: front of an audience of teen students, Ethan and I
Speaker 1: got to chat not about hacking our emotions, but about
Speaker 1: the effect that other people can have on our feelings
Speaker 1: and the big effects we can have on other people too.
Speaker 1: I definitely learned a lot from this conversation, and I
Speaker 1: think you will too. Welcome to the Happiness Lab Live
Speaker 1: where we are coming in from Rosemary Hall. We have
Speaker 1: a fantastic audience of folks here for a really fun
Speaker 1: conversation with one of my favorite psychologists, Ethan cross.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: Ethan is a professor at the University of Michigan, both
Speaker 1: in the Psychology Department and at the Roth School of Business.
Speaker 1: He's the director of the Emotion and Self Control Lab.
Speaker 1: He's an expert on strategies we can use to control
Speaker 1: our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. As you might guess with
Speaker 1: an expertise the school, Ethan's a sought after consultant and speaker.
Speaker 1: He's worked with famous CEOs, professional basketball teams, and has
Speaker 1: even been hosted at the White House, all to help
Speaker 1: leaders and folks who need it regulate their feelings and emotions.
Speaker 1: Ethan is the author of the national and international best
Speaker 1: selling book Chatter, The Voice in Our Head, Why it Matters,
Speaker 1: and How to Harness It. This book was chosen as
Speaker 1: one of the best new books of twenty twenty one
Speaker 1: by Washington BOSTHS, CNN, and USA Today. But he's just
Speaker 1: written a fabulous new book. I'm so exciting. We're here
Speaker 1: on launch day today a fabulous new book entitled Shift
Speaker 1: Managing Your Emotions so they don't manage You. Ethan is
Speaker 1: already a regular on the Happiness Lab and I'm super
Speaker 1: psyched that he's agreed to help me out with this
Speaker 1: live episode today because we're going to be exploring an
Speaker 1: important topic, how we can harness the people around us
Speaker 1: to feel happier. Please join me and welcoming to the
Speaker 1: Happiness Lab Live even talks all right, Ethan, So today
Speaker 1: we're talking about a bit of a paradox when it
Speaker 1: comes to our happiness and our emotions. You and I
Speaker 1: talk a lot about things we can do to be happier,
Speaker 1: and one of the biggest piece of advices that we
Speaker 1: often give is just that we can use other people
Speaker 1: to improve our happiness. Social connection is such a huge
Speaker 1: predictor of the way we feel. Often a thing that
Speaker 1: we can do to make ourselves feel good. But if
Speaker 1: we're paraphrasing Jean Paul sart hell is, other people like
Speaker 1: other people can also be a little bit of a
Speaker 1: pain in the butt. As an expert in emotion, can
Speaker 1: you resonate with this like completely?
Speaker 2: You know, other people can be our greatest ally or
Speaker 2: our worst enemy when it comes to managing our emotional lives.
Speaker 2: And what's really interesting to me about this issue is
Speaker 2: we don't get a user's guide for how to steer
Speaker 2: our interactions with other people. So I'm curious, and I
Speaker 2: think the rules here are no hands. But if you
Speaker 2: agree with something, clap? How many people here sometimes go
Speaker 2: to someone else to chat about a problem and find
Speaker 2: that it just makes you feel worse? Often not our intention,
Speaker 2: but sometimes this happens with people we really care about.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it's our loved ones. I often joke, but mem
Speaker 2: is quite sick. Seriously, there are many people in my
Speaker 2: life that I am exceptionally close to. DNA determines those
Speaker 2: close connections, if you know what I mean. I don't
Speaker 2: talk to them about problems because I know that when
Speaker 2: I do, it's just going to take me down the
Speaker 2: wrong path. And so I think it is critically important
Speaker 2: to understand how to harness your relationships with other people
Speaker 2: and also the way you interact with others to make
Speaker 2: sure those interactions contribute to fulfillment, happiness, and so forth,
Speaker 2: rather than push you in the opposite direction.
Speaker 1: So let's take a deeper look at some spots where
Speaker 1: we get it wrong. One of the pieces of psychology
Speaker 1: that I think is really relevant here is some work
Speaker 1: on what's called emotional contagion, what's emotional contigion, and why
Speaker 1: can it kind of take us off track when we're
Speaker 1: dealing with other people.
Speaker 2: So we are a social species. We are constantly looking
Speaker 2: to other people for how to understand ourselves. And what
Speaker 2: we have learned is that we actually catch feelings from
Speaker 2: other people quite eas So when you enter a room
Speaker 2: and you see people with a glum look on their face,
Speaker 2: sadly as professors, I think this may happen more often
Speaker 2: where they'd like to admit. Right, you go into the
Speaker 2: room and you see everyone, This immediately gives me information
Speaker 2: about what the temperature in the room is like, and
Speaker 2: I experience that emotion and that could be adaptive. Right,
Speaker 2: It signals to me, maybe I've got to loosen things up.
Speaker 2: But we know that emotions cause what we call a
Speaker 2: ripple effect. They very quickly cascade into our own lives.
Speaker 2: And if you're not aware of this, like, you can
Speaker 2: catch the wrong set of feelings. And so we're all
Speaker 2: all vulnerable to this, for better or worse.
Speaker 1: And I think one of the ways that I've seen
Speaker 1: this play out. Is that it's not just a like
Speaker 1: what on one contagion. It's not just like I might
Speaker 1: catch the emotions that you have, or I might catch
Speaker 1: the emotions from the audience, but then we tend to
Speaker 1: kind of transmit that to other situations, to almost like
Speaker 1: a virus. Right, So, say I have a conversation Ethan.
Speaker 1: This never happened with Ethan because obviously Ethan's a very
Speaker 1: happy person who's never gone. But let's say I have
Speaker 1: a conversation with Ethan. He's feeling really frustrated, he's feeling
Speaker 1: really down. I leave that conversation, and then I go
Speaker 1: teach my class, and then I transmit that to my class,
Speaker 1: or I go on social media and I post something
Speaker 1: that's kind of frustrated and gloom or angry, like you
Speaker 1: can see what researcher Sigall Barsai calls these affective spirals,
Speaker 1: where it's like not just like one person catches one
Speaker 1: person's emotion, but it's kind of a spiral that I
Speaker 1: can almost transmit to a community. So it sounds like
Speaker 1: this can be really bad when it comes to the
Speaker 1: sort of emotions that are kind of naturally free floating around.
Speaker 1: If we're dealing with negative emotion.
Speaker 2: Well, with negative emotions, it can certainly be the case.
Speaker 2: And I think that's particularly true with social media, where
Speaker 2: we see the viral spread of negative emotions happening really
Speaker 2: really fast. You come across news and it affects you. You
Speaker 2: see someone else displaying a negative reaction, you feel it
Speaker 2: as well, and then you quickly pass it on to
Speaker 2: someone else on the feed, and then it just it
Speaker 2: just cascades further and further and further. And so this
Speaker 2: is where I think knowledge is power. So knowing about
Speaker 2: how this works, I think for me and my experience
Speaker 2: as a human being is very powerful. So if I
Speaker 2: enter a room and I see one or two people are,
Speaker 2: you know, conveying facial expressions that I don't particularly think
Speaker 2: are conducive to the kinds of interactions I want to have,
Speaker 2: I'll try to loosen those people up and try to
Speaker 2: turn the you know, frown around.
Speaker 1: And I think it's important to this idea of knowledge
Speaker 1: is power. I think in part when we're often in
Speaker 1: these social situations where around other people, it can be
Speaker 1: important to remember how affected we are by them, right.
Speaker 1: I think about this a lot in like workplace settings, right,
Speaker 1: where like you go to work and like the people
Speaker 1: on your team might be kind of feeling optimistic or
Speaker 1: they might be feeling not so happy, and like you're
Speaker 1: going to catch that. But here we are at Chote today,
Speaker 1: I think this is so important in school context, right,
Speaker 1: whether it's like on your athletic team, whether it's in
Speaker 1: your classroom, Like, the emotions of one person are going
Speaker 1: to kind of transmit in this way that can be
Speaker 1: again sort of dangerous if they're negative emotions that we're
Speaker 1: dealing with.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, how many people here have been told don't compare
Speaker 2: yourselves to other people. So it sounds beautiful that piece
Speaker 2: of advice, but easier bleeping said than done, right, Like
Speaker 2: is that easy to do? Just stop comparing yourself to
Speaker 2: other people. So talking about the way that other people
Speaker 2: can affect us, I'm reminded of the time that my
Speaker 2: daughter asked my daughter, who's you know in high school?
Speaker 2: Wanted more screen time one night and was like really
Speaker 2: really supreme court level like litigation here arguing for more
Speaker 2: screen time. I was like, no, you know, and I said, well, no,
Speaker 2: other families give their kids more screen time. And then
Speaker 2: she comes back and goes, I thought you said, we
Speaker 2: don't compare ourselves to other people? Was pretty slick, huh.
Speaker 2: I mean I was proud inside, but I did not
Speaker 2: show it. I regulated that emotion and I just held true.
Speaker 2: But what I realized in that moment was that that
Speaker 2: directive I gave, we don't compare selves to other people,
Speaker 2: probably the worst advice I could ever give, because it
Speaker 2: is not possible not to reference other people. We are
Speaker 2: constantly looking to others to make sense of who we are. Right.
Speaker 2: This is called social comparisons. That's how we operate, and
Speaker 2: I think the more we embrace that, the better, because
Speaker 2: then there's an opportunity to make social comparisons wiser, right,
Speaker 2: to steer those comparisons so that they don't maybe negatively
Speaker 2: affect us. There's also the opportunity to benefit from this
Speaker 2: emotional contagion effect. Right Like earlier on when everyone else
Speaker 2: was clapping, did that feel good to folks here? I
Speaker 2: felt great? I loved it. I remember I was telling
Speaker 2: Laurie the story earlier. When I was in college, one
Speaker 2: of the most memorable classes I ever took was a
Speaker 2: class on communications, and the instructor said, there is an
Speaker 2: art to being a good audience member. I'm scanning you
Speaker 2: all right now to see who's going to get an
Speaker 2: A versus an F. A couple of f's here, right.
Speaker 2: So the art to being a good audience member involves
Speaker 2: a gentle kind of raising your cheap bone, smiling, not
Speaker 2: your good I love it, keep going.
Speaker 1: And pointing at once. Today it was like really kind
Speaker 1: of kindly smiling and looking.
Speaker 2: At I mean, it's fine to do that. In your head,
Speaker 2: you could say this is terrible. Yeah, I can't wait
Speaker 2: to go back to what I'm doing. It doesn't matter
Speaker 2: for us up here, because we're catching these signals from you.
Speaker 2: You're conveying information to us, and so you can use that.
Speaker 2: If you know how this works, you can use it
Speaker 2: to your benefit to make other people feel better or
Speaker 2: not right. And so that's where the knowledge is power
Speaker 2: for how I think all this works. And we'll talk
Speaker 2: more about social comparison, I'm sure, but yeah, well.
Speaker 1: Let's come into it now, because I think you know,
Speaker 1: we were just talking about. Emotional contagion is one way
Speaker 1: that we catch other people's emotions in person and also online.
Speaker 1: As you mentioned, I think especially online, but also in person.
Speaker 1: Another way that other people negatively affect our emotions is
Speaker 1: through social comparison, and that can feels regularly frustrating because
Speaker 1: sometimes even in a situation where you feel like you're
Speaker 1: like objectively kind of doing okay, if you see somebody
Speaker 1: doing better than you, it can make you feel kind
Speaker 1: of crappy, whether that's oh, they had a better vacation
Speaker 1: than me, or you know, again here we're in high school.
Speaker 1: They're getting better grades than me, they'd perform better than me,
Speaker 1: they're doing better at work, making more money. You know,
Speaker 1: for folks in the adult world, it seems like all
Speaker 1: of it makes you feel kind of bad about yourself.
Speaker 2: And it's always possible to find someone who's outperforming you.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's remarkable we can always find that person sometimes.
Speaker 2: I mean, a lot of people describe the experience of
Speaker 2: being on social media, A lot of people here on
Speaker 2: social media, I get. So anyone ever feel like when
Speaker 2: you're on on Instagram or whatever platforms you're on that
Speaker 2: it's kind of like navigating landlines, like you're going through it.
Speaker 2: You're feeling good, you're seeing the funny movie great, great, great,
Speaker 2: and then you catch something that, oh, crap, I suck,
Speaker 2: Like does anyone ever have that experience? Just me yes,
Speaker 2: So you go and know when it's going to happen.
Speaker 2: And we do know from lots of research that most
Speaker 2: of the social comparisons we make, and we are doing
Speaker 2: these comparisons all the time, do tend to push us
Speaker 2: in the negative direction. So we make comparisons against people
Speaker 2: who a outperforming us in some way, we don't feel
Speaker 2: great about our lives. You can actually reframe those comparisons
Speaker 2: to your benefit. And up until I knew about the
Speaker 2: science here, I was just a victim of these comparisons.
Speaker 2: I feel kind of glum, you know. I go lay
Speaker 2: on the couch, maybe put some washcloth on my head. Oh,
Speaker 2: I'm such a failure having lived up to my blah
Speaker 2: blah blah.
Speaker 1: That was a joke. Cook, he's trying to make it.
Speaker 2: The Yeah, we won't even try that one again because
Speaker 2: that was just stre I like this where you could
Speaker 2: just edit it.
Speaker 1: We just edit it up. If the joke doesn't work
Speaker 1: in there, this is good.
Speaker 2: So here's what you do. You can flip it. So
Speaker 2: now when I come across that situation, I think, Wow,
Speaker 2: they achieved this, so can I. And now it's not
Speaker 2: competition now, it's this is information that I can use
Speaker 2: to try to aspire to reach that goal. That's a
Speaker 2: little little reframe we call it. That is powerful because
Speaker 2: it neutralizes that negative social comparison is, which is inevitable.
Speaker 2: And now that I know how to do it, and
Speaker 2: you know, this was a big reason for writing this book,
Speaker 2: is if you have the tools to push your emotions around,
Speaker 2: it becomes really easy to do it. It doesn't have
Speaker 2: to be super complicated. You can also do it in
Speaker 2: the negative direction. You come across someone who is doing
Speaker 2: a lot worse than you, and maybe you think yourself,
Speaker 2: oh my god, what if this happens to me? Right?
Speaker 2: That makes people really anxious. Sometimes rather than thinking about
Speaker 2: making a comparison and feeling that way, you could flip it. Wow,
Speaker 2: I'm so grateful this hasn't happened to me. Simple switch
Speaker 2: puts you in a totally different direction. Do you ever
Speaker 2: do this when you make social comparisons, like tell the world,
Speaker 2: lurie you make you have be silent on you making
Speaker 2: the comparisons. It's been just about me so far?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so. This is one of the one
Speaker 1: of the studies I teach in my class is just
Speaker 1: like so profound at how not only how bad social
Speaker 1: comparison makes us feel, but how much like sometimes when
Speaker 1: we're socially comparing, we just like don't have any justification
Speaker 1: for it at all. And it's a study that happened,
Speaker 1: a very famous study with in sports researchers went and
Speaker 1: they looked at olympians who were on the stand. So
Speaker 1: these are people who won gold, silver, and bronze medals
Speaker 1: at the Olympics standing on the stand, and what they
Speaker 1: did was they videotape their facial expressions to see who
Speaker 1: was kind of who was feeling which emotions right, and
Speaker 1: so first the gold medalist, what are they feeling? Well,
Speaker 1: they're feeling like happy, elated, they're smiling. It's fine, right,
Speaker 1: they're best in the world. Right now we cut to
Speaker 1: this silver medallist. What are they feeling? There's second best
Speaker 1: in the world, like literally better in whatever their sport
Speaker 1: is than billions of other people. What emotions are they
Speaker 1: experiencing If you analyze their facial expressions, it's not happiness.
Speaker 1: It's emotions like contempt, deep sadness, grief. Like they're not
Speaker 1: even in the positive camp anymore. They're just experiencing only
Speaker 1: negative emotions. Why there's a really obvious social comparison there
Speaker 1: when you won the silver medal, you really almost got gold,
Speaker 1: but you didn't get it. So what are you feeling.
Speaker 1: You're not feeling like, you know, slightly less happy than
Speaker 1: the best in the world, even though you are the
Speaker 1: second best in the world. You're feeling awful, right, But
Speaker 1: the reason I like this study is that it also
Speaker 1: points to a way that we can do better because
Speaker 1: those researchers also measure the emotions of the bronze medalist,
Speaker 1: the person who did third. Right now, you might think,
Speaker 1: what the silver medallist is feeling really terrible and contemptuous
Speaker 1: and experiencing grief, then the bronze medalist is going to
Speaker 1: be doing even worse, like they're going to be totally miserable.
Speaker 1: Right turns out not so. The bronze medalist is showing
Speaker 1: incredible elation, huge smiles, sometimes even huger smiles than the
Speaker 1: gold medalist, which is weird. So you ask the question,
Speaker 1: what's going on, Well, what's going on again is social comparison?
Speaker 1: Who's the bronze medalist comparing himself against too not gold?
Speaker 1: Because that was like several seconds or several points or
Speaker 1: whatever away the bronze medalist is saying, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: you know, if I was just a little bit slower,
Speaker 1: if I perform a little bit worse, I wouldn't be
Speaker 1: getting any metal at all. Like I would just be
Speaker 1: clapping from the back of the stands going home empty handed.
Speaker 1: I feel awesome. The bronze medalist comparison makes him feel good.
Speaker 1: And this is why always joke with my students that
Speaker 1: when you're trying to fight social comparison, you shouldn't look
Speaker 1: for the silver lining, because the silver maid you usually
Speaker 1: look for the bronze lining. I want to go almost
Speaker 1: like it was a good joke, thank you.
Speaker 2: But but Laurie, like the way you just described it
Speaker 2: so completely read with that route to harnessing social comparisons.
Speaker 2: But when you describe the silver metallist as, hey, you
Speaker 2: are number two out of seven.
Speaker 1: Billion people on the planet right now.
Speaker 2: That's a reframe too that the silver medallist can use
Speaker 2: that is really powerful. And if there's one big picture
Speaker 2: lesson that I would love all of you to take
Speaker 2: away from this conversation with us about managing your emotions,
Speaker 2: it is that you can be proactive in how to
Speaker 2: do it. Oftentimes we just stumble into emotional reactions. We
Speaker 2: make the comparison, it leads us in a particular direction,
Speaker 2: and then we just kind of ride it out until
Speaker 2: it peters out. But you could get in there strategically
Speaker 2: doing the kinds of things that Laurie and I are
Speaker 2: talking about to nip those reactions in the bud, or
Speaker 2: extend them, or lengthen them and increase their intensity, whatever
Speaker 2: you want to do, if you understand the specific tactics
Speaker 2: that exist.
Speaker 1: And so when we get back from the break, we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about some tactics we can use to
Speaker 1: deal with not just the way other people affect our emotions,
Speaker 1: but the way other people affect our behavior. The Happiness
Speaker 1: Lab that we'll do what All Right, we're coming back
Speaker 1: from the BAK the Happiness.
Speaker 2: Lab and Show grows all live.
Speaker 1: It is returning. Okay, So before the break, we were
Speaker 1: talking about ways that other people affect our emotions. Now
Speaker 1: I want to get into ways that other people affect
Speaker 1: our behavior what we're actually doing. And there's a long
Speaker 1: history of this in the field of psychology.
Speaker 2: Right, other people are in a position to push us
Speaker 2: around in all sorts of ways. They can affect the
Speaker 2: way we think they can affect the way we feel,
Speaker 2: they can affect the way we behave Okay, so just
Speaker 2: just look at Laurie and I right now. Anyone noticed
Speaker 2: something similar, Like, they're all different ways we could have
Speaker 2: chosen to sit Like I could have done this. I
Speaker 2: was going to do a lotus position yoga. I can't
Speaker 2: actually do it, but like a lot I could. I could.
Speaker 2: I could be like.
Speaker 1: This, put your hands or popped over.
Speaker 2: I could, you know, But we're like this, we're mimicking.
Speaker 1: Cross knees, both looking exactly right and.
Speaker 2: Kind of upright. So there is this chameleon effect where
Speaker 2: if you are in the presence of someone in particular
Speaker 2: at your level or above someone you admire, you tend
Speaker 2: to automatically mimic their behavior. So if you've ever been
Speaker 2: in an interaction where someone starts doing this, you cross
Speaker 2: your hands, and then the person next to you crosses
Speaker 2: your hands. Anyone ever like witnessed this kind of mimicking
Speaker 2: that occurs. This is endemic to how we function, and
Speaker 2: interestingly enough, it can improve rapport between people because there's
Speaker 2: this matching between us.
Speaker 1: In fact, thing they often tell you to do if
Speaker 1: you want to become friends with somebody. Get to know people,
Speaker 1: let somebody else know that you're listening to them, is
Speaker 1: to what's called mirror their behavior, So not like perfectly
Speaker 1: copy it, but kind of do it. Turns out this
Speaker 1: is actually a podcast or technique. When you're doing it
Speaker 1: lives for me.
Speaker 2: To copy your actions.
Speaker 1: So you make you feel like I have you been doing?
Speaker 2: I feel very welcome, presents, warm cup of tea.
Speaker 1: But what are some of the consequences of this? It
Speaker 1: means that, like naturally, without realizing it, we're like soaking
Speaker 1: in the behaviors of others and copying.
Speaker 2: In it other people. Look, the world is messy, the
Speaker 2: world is unpredictable. We are constantly as human beings striving
Speaker 2: to make sense of how to optimally navigate this world. You,
Speaker 2: as someone who I can trust, someone I admire, you're
Speaker 2: giving me all sorts of information. So I'm taking that
Speaker 2: in and I'm using it to guide my own behavior
Speaker 2: unconsciously because I could count on you. Now, if it's
Speaker 2: someone else who I don't know and I don't trust,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to mimic them as much. Now, you
Speaker 2: can have fun with this effect if you want, Like
Speaker 2: you might be talking to someone and you could push
Speaker 2: its limits, you know, like Laurie does this when she
Speaker 2: interviews new graduate students. I'm just joking about that's going
Speaker 2: to be an added But but you could you can
Speaker 2: do a little bit of experimenting to see how this
Speaker 2: actually operates. It is a powerful, powerful phenomenon. And if
Speaker 2: you see someone mimicking you, I think it's a sign
Speaker 2: of a flattery, like they actually hold you at some
Speaker 2: level of esteem. Now, if you're not mimicking, don't take
Speaker 2: that the wrong way. If you're not being mimicked, right,
Speaker 2: you could reframe it.
Speaker 1: So, but that's kind of the behavioral copying we do
Speaker 1: just kind of unconsciously sometimes when we see other people's behavior,
Speaker 1: it affects the way we think about things and reason
Speaker 1: about things. This is a phenomenon that's often been called
Speaker 1: social benchmarking.
Speaker 2: What's that. This is the this wonderful study where I
Speaker 2: don't think you could actually do this nowadays in the lab.
Speaker 2: This was done maybe sixty years ago, this study, and
Speaker 2: participants came into the lab and they were actually injected
Speaker 2: with adrenaline, but they didn't actually know it was adrenaline.
Speaker 2: I think they were told it was vitamins or something
Speaker 2: to that effect, and so they've got these kinds of
Speaker 2: arousal symptoms. Right, they're like energized physiologically. They don't quite
Speaker 2: know where this energization is that a word. We're gonna
Speaker 2: run with it. It sounds okay, okay, energization is coming from.
Speaker 2: It's definitely not a word that energized feeling. They don't
Speaker 2: know where it's coming from. And what the experimenters do.
Speaker 2: In one condition, they have this actor come into the
Speaker 2: room and he acts like you fork like she's just
Speaker 2: super super happy. And in another condition, have an actor
Speaker 2: come in and he's really angry. And what the experimenters
Speaker 2: want to see is does the subject who's been shot
Speaker 2: up with this adrenaline does the behavior of the other
Speaker 2: person change the way that they behave Right, So you've
Speaker 2: got all this feelings, but you're not sure how to
Speaker 2: make sense of it. And so what they end up
Speaker 2: finding is that when you're in the presence of someone
Speaker 2: acting really angry, you start acting more angry as well.
Speaker 2: If you're in the presence of someone who is acting
Speaker 2: you for, you kind of start behaving happier too. So
Speaker 2: it's another example of how other people have a potential
Speaker 2: to powerfully shape the way we ourselves respond and in
Speaker 2: this case, behave. And that is particularly true when you
Speaker 2: are not sure of how to behave, or you are
Speaker 2: not sure how to make sense of what is going
Speaker 2: on inside you.
Speaker 1: And I think that particularly fits with this study, right,
Speaker 1: you know, these subjects are shot up with this chemical
Speaker 1: like they thought they took a vitamin, and now all
Speaker 1: of a sudden they're feeling like this sense of energy,
Speaker 1: like they don't know what's going on, and so they
Speaker 1: look to this other person to be like, oh, we're
Speaker 1: angry now, we're angry at the experiment. Oh we're you
Speaker 1: for it. But and that happened in this weird, strange,
Speaker 1: you know, possibly an ethical now experiment, But this happens
Speaker 1: all the time when we have an experience that we're
Speaker 1: kind of not sure how to make sense of, and
Speaker 1: we have to look to other people.
Speaker 2: So this reminds me of a story with my oldest
Speaker 2: daughter and a couple of years ago, she transitioned to
Speaker 2: a new school. It was a lot more demanding academically
Speaker 2: than the school she was in before. And I go
Speaker 2: up into her bedroom one night and I noticed she
Speaker 2: is she's physically distressed and she's really getting worked up.
Speaker 2: She seems very very anxious in a way I've never
Speaker 2: seen her experienced that emotion before. I go, Sweetie, what's
Speaker 2: going on, what's wrong? And she goes she's like breathing
Speaker 2: heavy and like, I don't know what's happening, Like I'm
Speaker 2: feeling these things in my stomach and what's going on on?
Speaker 2: And so then that's my opportunity to get in there
Speaker 2: and help her interpret this uncertainessy sweety, that's your body
Speaker 2: doing exactly what it's supposed to be doing right now.
Speaker 2: You've got a really important test tomorrow, and you're experiencing
Speaker 2: this response that's saying, hey, you need to do a
Speaker 2: little bit more studying before you go to bed. That's it.
Speaker 2: You're actually lucky, you're fortunate you're experiencing this because it's
Speaker 2: like a little internal queue telling you to prepare. And
Speaker 2: the moment I gave her that interpretation, her entire demeanor changed, right,
Speaker 2: the anxiety went way down, and she got into studying.
Speaker 2: So what I've done there is I reframed the experience
Speaker 2: for her. I reframed her bodily reaction. This is taking
Speaker 2: a page straight out of research where you tell people
Speaker 2: to either make sense of their physiological symptoms of anxiety,
Speaker 2: either as a threat, oh my god, something may be wrong,
Speaker 2: versus a challenge like this is your body rising to
Speaker 2: the occasion and it worked like clockwork. And so that
Speaker 2: is one powerful potential that other people have for us.
Speaker 2: Other people are often in a position to help us
Speaker 2: reframe our circumstances in ways that can really put us
Speaker 2: on the right trajectory.
Speaker 1: Or the problem is that, or put us on the
Speaker 1: wrong trajectory. And I'm cognisance. We're having this conversation in
Speaker 1: front of a high school audience. You know, students. How
Speaker 1: many times have you you know, gotten a bad grade
Speaker 1: on something? Not really sure how to take it, but
Speaker 1: you show your parents or you show your friends, and
Speaker 1: they either react and like that's fine, it's like just
Speaker 1: one paper, or they're like, oh my gosh, like you
Speaker 1: get that grade. I don't know how that's going to
Speaker 1: affect your college, Like what does that do to you?
Speaker 1: And so I think, you know, it's great that your
Speaker 1: daughter had a parent who's so careful to help her
Speaker 1: kind of rethink that emotion in a way. That's good.
Speaker 1: I worry so often we do this in a way
Speaker 1: that's like, that's not great. That like as parents, as
Speaker 1: ment towards our first reaction is to kind of feel
Speaker 1: upset at someone's failure rather than say like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is great, this is a cool opportunity. But our reaction
Speaker 1: is changing how somebody else might be feeling about a
Speaker 1: particular situation they find themselves in.
Speaker 2: I worry about it too, And that's why I think
Speaker 2: conversations like this, all the this aside with you all
Speaker 2: are exceptionally important because what knowing about how this works
Speaker 2: gives you the opportunity to do is number one. When
Speaker 2: people come to you, when your friends, your siblings, later
Speaker 2: on in life, other colleagues come to you for support,
Speaker 2: you are now mindful of the powerful role that you
Speaker 2: exert on their emotional lives, and you should take that. Really,
Speaker 2: that's a serious responsibility that you have to do good
Speaker 2: for other human beings, and if you know how to
Speaker 2: steer their ways of thinking, you can really help them.
Speaker 2: But it also gives all of you the opportunity to
Speaker 2: be a lot more selective about who you talk to
Speaker 2: about the issues that you are struggling with. I think
Speaker 2: a lot of us don't think twice about who to
Speaker 2: go to for support. We just feel like we've got
Speaker 2: to talk to other people. Let's find someone and let
Speaker 2: it out. And sometimes it's like flipping a coin. Who's
Speaker 2: going to push you down the wrong path or the
Speaker 2: right one? And it doesn't have to be that random.
Speaker 1: So I think this is sometimes I think that's about
Speaker 1: other people affecting us. That's so frustrating. Is like people
Speaker 1: who are trying to do good, trying to give advice,
Speaker 1: trying to help, sometimes wind up messing us.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: And you've actually seen this in a new domain and
Speaker 1: a new paper that just came out where the kind
Speaker 1: of advice that people are giving, maybe even about the
Speaker 1: benefits of social connection and talking to people, can sometimes
Speaker 1: go awry. Tell me about the new Loneliness study.
Speaker 2: So this is some really exciting research. It's led by
Speaker 2: a graduate student in my lab, MICHAELA. Rodriguez. And let
Speaker 2: me start by just asking all of you, how many
Speaker 2: if you here have heard quite frequently this messaging that
Speaker 2: being alone is bad for you, it's toxic, right you
Speaker 2: want to stay away from those experiences. This is a
Speaker 2: pervasive message right now. There's a huge amount of attention
Speaker 2: with this country and several others as well, there's i
Speaker 2: think a Minister of Loneliness in the UK and Japan.
Speaker 2: There's a huge amount of attention trying to help people
Speaker 2: combat experiences of being alone and the feelings of loneliness
Speaker 2: that accompany those states. Being lonely has been compared to
Speaker 2: smoking cigarettes in terms of its impact on your health.
Speaker 2: And so what we've done across a series of studies
Speaker 2: is try to understand how the messaging that we are
Speaker 2: giving to society about this might help or hurt folks.
Speaker 2: And so here's what we've learned. Number One, there's actually
Speaker 2: nothing intrinsically bad about being physically alone for you know,
Speaker 2: circumscribed periods of time forever chronicization, but being how many
Speaker 2: people here actually find value in being alone sometimes right,
Speaker 2: it can be kind of great, It can be restorative,
Speaker 2: It can be a source of creativity. So what we've
Speaker 2: seen in lots of research is how you think about
Speaker 2: being alone, is it good for me or bad for me,
Speaker 2: directly impacts how you experience that site. If you think
Speaker 2: being alone is bad for you, if you're sitting at
Speaker 2: the lunch room and you're eating by yourself one day
Speaker 2: and you think, oh boy, not good. That's going to
Speaker 2: lead you to feel lonelier. If you think this is
Speaker 2: an opportunity to rest and restore be alone with my thoughts,
Speaker 2: this could be a good thing. You actually feel better
Speaker 2: when you spend time alone. Okay, and we see that
Speaker 2: over and over again. Here's why this is really important.
Speaker 2: We did this analysis where we went back several years
Speaker 2: and we looked at every major news article that talk
Speaker 2: about being alone, and we coded it rigorously for are
Speaker 2: you describing this experience of being alone as something that's
Speaker 2: good for you or bad for you? Overwhelmingly, the media
Speaker 2: describes experiences of being alone as bad for you, as toxic.
Speaker 2: Why that matters, We've shown if you give people news
Speaker 2: articles in one condition, they describe being alone as bad
Speaker 2: for you, and in another condition being alone is good
Speaker 2: for you. What information you are exposed to there directly
Speaker 2: impacts how you think about what this state does for you.
Speaker 2: So if you're reading these articles being alone is really
Speaker 2: bad for you, you think it's bad for you, and
Speaker 2: that in turn makes it bad for you. It's almost
Speaker 2: a self fulfilling prophecy.
Speaker 1: So it's again it seems like another situation where hearing
Speaker 1: how other people are talking about it is affecting how
Speaker 1: we might think about it. Maybe we're kind of in
Speaker 1: between of like, yeah, in good points and bad points
Speaker 1: where you hear other people saying, oh, this is so bad,
Speaker 1: comes a social benchmark which affects your own emotions when
Speaker 1: you're in that state.
Speaker 2: That's right, And what's really what's really tragic about this
Speaker 2: phenomenon is I genuinely think the folks who are behind
Speaker 2: this messaging are pushing it out there to help people.
Speaker 2: But what we are learning is that their attempts to
Speaker 2: help society maybe actually backfiring.
Speaker 1: And so we want to avoid these moments where being
Speaker 1: around other people winds it backfiring. We want to avoid
Speaker 1: these moments when other people's emotions make us feel bad
Speaker 1: or other people's behaviors make us do something that might
Speaker 1: not fit with our goals. But how do we do that? Luckily,
Speaker 1: when we get back from the break, Ethan is going
Speaker 1: to help us out the Happiness Lab Live. I'm sure
Speaker 1: it is very hard, we'll do it. We are back
Speaker 1: to Happiness Love Live from show. So now we're going
Speaker 1: to do the fun part of our conversation because we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about how we can kind of use
Speaker 1: other people in a way that really does make our
Speaker 1: emotions feel better, that does allow us to achieve our
Speaker 1: behavioral goals, and so on, a kind of set of
Speaker 1: like social hacks that can be these powerful tools for
Speaker 1: shaping our happiness ultimately. So let's go back to one
Speaker 1: of the things we talked about before, emotional contagion. What
Speaker 1: are some hacks that we can use to kind of
Speaker 1: have other people like? What are some hacks that we
Speaker 1: can use to catch other people's emotions in ways that
Speaker 1: are good for us versus.
Speaker 2: Bad for us? I think number one this more than
Speaker 2: any phenomenon that we talked about today. This is where
Speaker 2: knowledge is power is so unbelievably relevant. So I did
Speaker 2: a little bit of intervention a little bit earlier where
Speaker 2: I shared with all of you how your facial expressions
Speaker 2: can impact us up here. And some of you are
Speaker 2: have responded very nicely. Others I think there's still some
Speaker 2: room for improvement.
Speaker 1: Maybe a lot smalling asleep. We're having this conversations a
Speaker 1: little early.
Speaker 2: That's it's all good, So I'm joking, but knowing how
Speaker 2: this works can be really powerful. So as as someone
Speaker 2: who leads different groups and teams, I'm exceptionally sensitive to
Speaker 2: the kind of emotional displays in the group and the
Speaker 2: demeanor in the group. And if I find that one
Speaker 2: or two people are consistently showing up in a way
Speaker 2: that is cascading and impacting everyone else, I intervene right away.
Speaker 2: I do it with compassion. I often explain how this works,
Speaker 2: and that is often enough, but it is really important
Speaker 2: to do it, because the entire spirit of the lab
Speaker 2: or the group can easily nose dive if I don't
Speaker 2: address this right away.
Speaker 1: And I love the suggestion so much because I think
Speaker 1: sometimes when we hear about these effects of emotional contagion,
Speaker 1: we're like, oh my gosh, we're just totally at the
Speaker 1: mercy of the people around us, and I'm just like,
Speaker 1: my emotions are stuck. But what you have to understand
Speaker 1: when you hear those effects is like, that also means
Speaker 1: you have agency. Right if you roll into your team
Speaker 1: and everybody's kind of feeling down, you have to remember, like, wait,
Speaker 1: I have the agency that if I place a seed
Speaker 1: of a little bit of optimism, a little bit of humor,
Speaker 1: a little bit of something, a little bit more positive energy,
Speaker 1: whatever you need, that seed is going to spread. And
Speaker 1: what's really cool about the fact that there are these
Speaker 1: ripple effects, these so called affective spirals. Is like, if
Speaker 1: you plant that seed, and even if it's a little forced,
Speaker 1: even if you're kind of trying a little bit, if
Speaker 1: other people catch it, they're going to catch that a
Speaker 1: little bit authentically and then they'll feed it back to you. Right,
Speaker 1: So you can kind of be the seed that starts
Speaker 1: the spiral of something.
Speaker 2: That's right, and you can leverage a lot of the
Speaker 2: other effects that we've been talking about. So I'll often
Speaker 2: purposefully overcorrect and positivity and happiness, Like don't I look
Speaker 2: ridiculous in.
Speaker 1: A smiling He's smiling really jokingly. This evidents if you
Speaker 1: see their faces, they're like, why is he making that expression?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Sure, yeah, but there we go. We got the laugh.
Speaker 2: So like, I'll often focus in on the one person
Speaker 2: who maybe isn't showing the right kind of attitude and
Speaker 2: either not directly by through these kind of chameleon effects,
Speaker 2: try to loosen them up, or maybe I'll ask them, hey,
Speaker 2: so you know what's going on, anything could happen this weekend?
Speaker 2: Try to shift their mood deliberately.
Speaker 1: So that's sort of emotional contiion. We talked a little
Speaker 1: before about sort of venting this idea that sometimes we
Speaker 1: want to share our emotions with other people or share
Speaker 1: our troubles with other people, but often sometimes there are
Speaker 1: people out there that don't necessarily mirror back to us
Speaker 1: what we want to hear. They kind of can hype
Speaker 1: us up or get us even more upset or more frustrated.
Speaker 1: How do we do a better job picking people we
Speaker 1: should vent to more successfully than others?
Speaker 2: So this, it turns out, is actually pretty simple to do.
Speaker 2: And when I think about, like all the science written
Speaker 2: about in this book, this is top five pieces of
Speaker 2: information that I use in my own life and really
Speaker 2: benefit from it quite a bit. So I think about,
Speaker 2: who are the people in my life that when I
Speaker 2: go to to talk to them about a problem, they
Speaker 2: don't just listen and demonstrate that they support me and
Speaker 2: have my back, but essentially egg me on, which is
Speaker 2: what happens when you co ruminate with someone else. So
Speaker 2: here's the situation, like something bad has happened to you
Speaker 2: and you go to talk to someone else about it.
Speaker 2: So I have a difficult interaction let's say with a colleague,
Speaker 2: my call Laori Laurd Can you believe what this person
Speaker 2: did and you say.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I can't believe they did that. They suck.
Speaker 1: Why are you even in that university? It sucks like
Speaker 1: you need to get rid of all your Like you
Speaker 1: see what I'm doing. I'm just like feel in the
Speaker 1: fire right. I haven't gone into problem solving mode. I
Speaker 1: haven't tried to de escalate this.
Speaker 2: And when you do that for me, I love it.
Speaker 2: I love it in the moment. It is indulgent, it
Speaker 2: is Yes, Laurie's on my side, she hears me, feels me.
Speaker 2: So that's really good for our relationship to do a
Speaker 2: little bit of that kind of back and forth expression
Speaker 2: and venting. Ideally, though, at some point in this conversation,
Speaker 2: Laurie says to me, oh.
Speaker 1: Man, that sounds tough, but like, how are we gonna
Speaker 1: deal with the situation, Like, you know, like what we
Speaker 1: should what should we do to shift your emotion? Let's
Speaker 1: play Don't Stop Believing because that's a really fun song
Speaker 1: and you'll feel better. Like we just do whatever to.
Speaker 2: Kind of get back to she's playing that is one
Speaker 2: of my favorites. Emotions shift for me.
Speaker 1: She wanted to play that coming out, but we nip
Speaker 1: that in the button but uh, and that's important because,
Speaker 1: as you said, the venting, the co ruminating, as we've
Speaker 1: called it, it's really good for our relationship, but it's
Speaker 1: really bad for both of our emotions ultimately.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: If I leave the conversation, that terrible interaction with the
Speaker 1: colleague didn't even happen to me. But now I'm having
Speaker 1: a terrible day too, and I haven't helped what I
Speaker 1: think even probably wanted out of this conversation, which is
Speaker 1: a way to shift his emotions back.
Speaker 2: I mean, I had a converse sometimes like I'm a
Speaker 2: you catch the emotion. A friend called me up and
Speaker 2: they just they didn't even give me a chance to
Speaker 2: help shift their perspective. They just rapid fire launched in
Speaker 2: and then I hung up. Okay, I gotta go, And
Speaker 2: for the next three hours, I'm just going over in
Speaker 2: my head what happened to them. Yeah, and I'm taking
Speaker 2: on all the emotional baggage. So those are not the
Speaker 2: best kinds of conversations to make you feel better. The
Speaker 2: best conversations do two things. First, the person you're talking to,
Speaker 2: they listen, They empathize, They normalize what you're going If
Speaker 2: your lord, you're not alone like anyone would feel experience.
Speaker 1: A lot of people have this bad day with colleagues.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean every day is going to be bad
Speaker 1: with your colleagues.
Speaker 2: And so you start broadening the perspective. That is the
Speaker 2: art of being a good emotional advisor. And so my
Speaker 2: advice to everyone here is to, like, when you're done,
Speaker 2: if you care about this, make a little table personal problems,
Speaker 2: school problems. List out all the people you talk to
Speaker 2: about those different kinds of problems. Some of you may
Speaker 2: have the same names of people on each column, like
Speaker 2: you talk to the same people about personal stuff and
Speaker 2: school stuff. Others may have different names. Some of you
Speaker 2: may have no names. It doesn't matter. I'm just doing
Speaker 2: an audit here. Who is your emotional advisory board? Once
Speaker 2: you have those names, then I want you to think
Speaker 2: to yourself, Okay, who are the people on this list
Speaker 2: who do two things? When I go to them, First,
Speaker 2: they listen, they empathize with me. But then they help
Speaker 2: broaden my perspective. They help shift the way I think
Speaker 2: about That wasn't purposeful. That was just slipped in there.
Speaker 1: His book is called.
Speaker 2: Tas That was terrible, non intended. But who are the
Speaker 2: people who help you reframe how you're thinking about your
Speaker 2: circumstances to ultimately allow you to move on. Those are
Speaker 2: your emotional advisors. Circle those names for all the names
Speaker 2: you didn't circle, You've got two choices. Number one, go
Speaker 2: get a red sharp eiet and cross their names off
Speaker 2: your list. It's something kind of cathartic about doing that, satisfying.
Speaker 2: It's a legitimate option. There are some people who you
Speaker 2: can be super close. You love them, talk to them
Speaker 2: about other stuff, but not the big problems in life.
Speaker 2: If they're not serving you well. There the other opportunity
Speaker 2: you have is to educate those people who aren't serving
Speaker 2: you well in this capacity by sharing with them what
Speaker 2: you've learned. And you know, I feel like it's important
Speaker 2: to give you a disclaimer. There's an art to doing
Speaker 2: that well. I would not advise you to pull those
Speaker 2: people aside and say, hey, I just went to this presentation.
Speaker 2: You know what I learned. You suck as an advisor,
Speaker 2: like you really you make me feel bad. I know
Speaker 2: you love me, but it doesn't help, so quit it. Okay,
Speaker 2: can do this and said probably not the most elegant
Speaker 2: way of intervening. A better way is did you know
Speaker 2: that actually just sharing out stuff and just get me
Speaker 2: to rehearse things. And actually I had no idea that actually,
Speaker 2: if you really want to help someone, you need to
Speaker 2: look at that bigger picture. Or if you don't want
Speaker 2: to do that, you could say I I just listened
Speaker 2: to this awesome live taping of a happiness lab.
Speaker 1: It was at my schools.
Speaker 2: At my school, and I think you'll find it really interesting.
Speaker 2: I learned all these things I never knew about. And
Speaker 2: then you hope they get to the end of the podcast.
Speaker 2: How many people get to the end of the podcast?
Speaker 1: Everybody?
Speaker 2: Everyone? Okay?
Speaker 1: That's that wasn't even a joke.
Speaker 2: I was just all right.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of dealing with sort of fighting motion antgion.
Speaker 1: How we can sort of get people to help us
Speaker 1: vent better, vent more effectively. How do we deal with
Speaker 1: the social comparison? We talked a little bit before about
Speaker 1: kind of using it more productively, but what are our
Speaker 1: go to social hacks?
Speaker 2: Then? So social comparison. So number one, if you do it,
Speaker 2: there's nothing wrong with you. I can't tell you how
Speaker 2: many people I encounter who they feel bad about themselves
Speaker 2: because they're making these social comparisons as though it's a
Speaker 2: sign of weakness that you're referencing other people. This is
Speaker 2: not a weakness. This is how you are wired. It
Speaker 2: is how we are built, and simply recognizing that should
Speaker 2: be liberating to some degree. It certainly is for me,
Speaker 2: like I do it. I can't help it. It's how
Speaker 2: we function. So Number one, recognize that that will help
Speaker 2: Number two. If you find yourself making a comparison against
Speaker 2: someone who is outperforming you in some way, flip it right.
Speaker 2: It's no longer oh my god, they're doing so much better.
Speaker 2: They did it, So can I use it as a
Speaker 2: source of motivation, as fuel to propel you. It's showing
Speaker 2: you what is actually possible, what you are capable of achieving.
Speaker 2: We tend to feel worse about the comparisons we make
Speaker 2: to people who are like us. Right, so you're like
Speaker 2: you'd be a great example for me. You are like
Speaker 2: me in many ways. If you are outperforming me in
Speaker 2: some way, that's really gonna sting. But the fact that
Speaker 2: you were like me also means that what you've achieved
Speaker 2: is something that I can do too. I think you
Speaker 2: will be amazed at how quickly this little reframe can
Speaker 2: totally reroute your emotional experience.
Speaker 1: There's also an interesting way that you can use the
Speaker 1: sort of social benchmarking with that too, which I find
Speaker 1: can be really powerful. Right you think like, oh, that
Speaker 1: person's like me, I can achieve that too, But then
Speaker 1: you also then ask the further question of like, but
Speaker 1: what are they doing that? Like I'm not doing absolutely.
Speaker 1: I had this good friend of mine who is like,
Speaker 1: I'm not a very fit person. She was also not
Speaker 1: a very fit person, but kind of she'd gotten a
Speaker 1: little bit sick and then just like really devoted herself
Speaker 1: to fitness and just started going to the gym all
Speaker 1: the time and so on. And I found myself doing
Speaker 1: the like, man, she's getting so fit, Like she's just
Speaker 1: like doing so well and feeling that social comparison that envy.
Speaker 1: But with this hack, I could do the fall. I
Speaker 1: was like, well, she was just like me before she
Speaker 1: was also unfit. But then I asked myself the question,
Speaker 1: well what's she doing. I'm like, well, she's going to
Speaker 1: the gym every day, she really paying attention to what
Speaker 1: she eats, she's going really hardcore with it. And then
Speaker 1: I had this realization of like, well, I could do
Speaker 1: that too, but I also have to do all the
Speaker 1: other hard stuff that she's doing, and then you could
Speaker 1: ask the question reasonably, do I want to do that
Speaker 1: hard stuff or not? Right? I think this can be powerful,
Speaker 1: right because you remember, like it's not just by you know,
Speaker 1: some accident. Often that people are doing better, especially if
Speaker 1: they've made a change, especially if they started like you.
Speaker 1: Often you know they're putting some work into this, They're
Speaker 1: making choices that maybe you are not making now, but
Speaker 1: you could so better.
Speaker 2: I experienced the very similar phenomenon. It was not with
Speaker 2: someone who was like me, per se. It was with
Speaker 2: President Obama, okay and so not like me, and but
Speaker 2: I remember it was like I was just starting as
Speaker 2: an assistant professor, and you know, it was hard being
Speaker 2: assistant professor. I was grinding away and I wasn't exercising regularly.
Speaker 2: And I came across an article about how Obama exercised
Speaker 2: every day, and immediately I come across this information. Now
Speaker 2: I'm really feeling bad about myself, like my pants aren't
Speaker 2: fitting to begin with, and now I'm finding out that
Speaker 2: the president of the free world right like, is able
Speaker 2: to do this Like not good? So what did I do?
Speaker 2: And back then it took me a while to reframe
Speaker 2: this because it wasn't top of mind as it is now.
Speaker 2: But eventually I didn't. I thought to myself, you know what,
Speaker 2: if that guy who's a lot busier than me and
Speaker 2: a lot more important, can find time to exercise each morning,
Speaker 2: so can I. And to this day that is a
Speaker 2: guiding motivation I use to get me to the gym.
Speaker 1: It's so funny because I have this similar thing when
Speaker 1: I'm at the gym and I have this trainer who
Speaker 1: is trying to help me, but you know, it's tough
Speaker 1: for him. But sometimes he'll make me do planks and
Speaker 1: I hate doing clanks. But I remember hearing that the
Speaker 1: Ruth Bader Ginsburg over Supreme Cut Purt Justice, did like
Speaker 1: three minutes of planks every day and she was like
Speaker 1: eighty And so when I hate this, I'm like Ruth
Speaker 1: Bader Gibsburg who was so much older than me, and
Speaker 1: she could do this, and I feel like I should
Speaker 1: be able to do it too.
Speaker 2: What we are talking about here is weaponizing these social
Speaker 2: comparisons to your benefit. Right we stumble into them, like,
Speaker 2: don't wait to stumble into it, jump in there and
Speaker 2: do it. And the quick flip side. I think we're
Speaker 2: winding down here. Is It works the other way too.
Speaker 2: If you find yourself coming across a case someone or
Speaker 2: a group of people, tragedy has befallen them, and you
Speaker 2: instantly interpret that as, oh my god, what if that
Speaker 2: happens to me. I was just recently in DC, for example,
Speaker 2: when the plane crash occurred. I actually flew in like
Speaker 2: a half hour after that happened, and many people that
Speaker 2: I was around were constant, really overcome with negativity because
Speaker 2: they were thinking about, Oh my god, what if this
Speaker 2: had happened to me? You can flip it right if
Speaker 2: you don't want to feel that way. Oh my god,
Speaker 2: how lucky am I that this didn't happen to me.
Speaker 2: It's a very easy switch. So I'll say one more
Speaker 2: thing fifteen seconds, and I'll throw it back to you.
Speaker 2: A lot of people think that managing your emotions is hard.
Speaker 2: It has to be hard. It sometimes is hard, but
Speaker 2: it doesn't always have to be. There are lots and
Speaker 2: lots of tools that we can use that make emotion
Speaker 2: regulation easy. And I think the more you can familiarize
Speaker 2: yourself with those easy to use, effortless shifts, and thank
Speaker 2: you to you for helping share these things with the
Speaker 2: world in your podcast. I think the happier we all
Speaker 2: will be.
Speaker 1: So well, Ethan, thank you so much for helping us
Speaker 1: figure out how we can use these social hacks to
Speaker 1: shift our emotions. Speak for all the folks in the
Speaker 1: room and listening at home, and say you're really feeling
Speaker 1: like shifting is going to be a little bit easier.
Speaker 1: I would like to thank you for all of