Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, where we give you insights into the mind, brain, behavior,
Speaker 1: and creativity. Each episode will feature a new guest who
Speaker 1: will stimulate your mind and give you a greater understanding
Speaker 1: of yourself, others, and the world we live in. Hopefully
Speaker 1: we'll also provide a glimpse into human possibility. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening and enjoy the podcast. So today I'm really excited
Speaker 1: to have Jonathan Fields on the podcast. Jonathan is a dad, husband,
Speaker 1: serial entrepreneur, growth strategist, and award winning author. He runs
Speaker 1: the Good Life Project, where he and his team lead
Speaker 1: a global community in the quest to have a more meaningful, connected,
Speaker 1: and vital life. His latest book is How to Live
Speaker 1: a Good Life, Soulful Stories, Surprising Science and practical Wisdom.
Speaker 1: Thanks for chatting with me today, Talvian. Yeah, it's my pleasure.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for inviting me. Oh man, I really
Speaker 1: enjoyed your book. I read it and, like you know,
Speaker 1: one sitting cover to cover, it's just it flows really naturally.
Speaker 1: But I know the writing process. Probably writing it doesn't
Speaker 1: flow as nicely as the final product looks. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: always an adventure and that I know you know that
Speaker 1: journey well yourself. And so two things. One, I'm so
Speaker 1: glad you enjoyed it. It's you know, writing is always
Speaker 1: a really kind of interesting process, and too, knowing that
Speaker 1: you come from a background where you know, with really
Speaker 1: rigorous academic perspective on things that are legitimate and actionable,
Speaker 1: you know, it was a really interesting challenge because writing
Speaker 1: this was I wanted to take stuff where I knew
Speaker 1: that there was science behind so much of what I
Speaker 1: was trying to do, but deliver it in a way
Speaker 1: where it just it felt like it was easy, where
Speaker 1: it felt like you didn't have to work to understand
Speaker 1: the ideas in the book. You know, you may have
Speaker 1: to do a bit of work to actually act on them,
Speaker 1: but I was really trying to create a way to
Speaker 1: share knowledge in a way that was just it went
Speaker 1: down really easily and was just really actionable. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it clearly was. And you brought in a lot of
Speaker 1: positive psychology I saw, I did you know that we
Speaker 1: share that love? Yeah, I know, it's great and to
Speaker 1: be able to bring that from the scientific journal articles
Speaker 1: to the everyday household there is no easy feat. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love the fact that book resonated with you because
Speaker 1: what I was really trying to do was take some
Speaker 1: ideas that I knew were really worked and just to
Speaker 1: steal them and serve them up in a way where
Speaker 1: it went down easy, but easy enough for people to
Speaker 1: look at and say, well, I could do that, and
Speaker 1: knowing that it would really matter if they did. For sure,
Speaker 1: you must be in New York City because I hear
Speaker 1: fire engines and indeed, you know, first we had like
Speaker 1: pis connection problems and this is validation. Then in fact
Speaker 1: I am in the Art of Manhattan. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: let's talk about let's I try to like turn lemons
Speaker 1: into lemonade here. So you talk about the different buckets
Speaker 1: that we have that we do as well to assess
Speaker 1: how empty they are for us and proactive steps to
Speaker 1: fill them. One of them is vitality. And in the
Speaker 1: Vitality book, I noticed that you include resiliency in there.
Speaker 1: Is that right, I do? Yeah, I thought that was
Speaker 1: really cool. I mean, we're going through some resiliency right
Speaker 1: now to get through this interview. For our listeners who
Speaker 1: don't know what we're talking about, we've been having some
Speaker 1: connection issues. So tell me a little bit why you
Speaker 1: decided to group together these things that you did under
Speaker 1: the vitality bucketing. You also included optimism as well as
Speaker 1: mindfulness and things like that. So yeah, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: it was one of the earliest decisions I had to make,
Speaker 1: because when you look at almost everything that's written where
Speaker 1: people are trying to figure out how to sort of
Speaker 1: live an optimal life, generally they split out okay, you know,
Speaker 1: they sort of split out your body, and then they
Speaker 1: split out your mind or your mindset or your you know,
Speaker 1: your affect. And you know, maybe ten, fifteen, twenty years ago,
Speaker 1: I could see how that would be a legitimate dichotomy,
Speaker 1: but you know, all the research now just shows that
Speaker 1: it is such a falsehood to actually try and speak
Speaker 1: to them as two separate things. You know. So when
Speaker 1: I think of vitality, what I think about is optimizing
Speaker 1: your state of mind and your state of body, because
Speaker 1: they're one seamless feedback mechanism. I can't fathom how you
Speaker 1: could actually try and optimize your physical body without it
Speaker 1: having a profound effect on your psychological side of your existence.
Speaker 1: And how the same thing with you know, if you're
Speaker 1: really trying to optimize mindset, it has a profound effect
Speaker 1: on your body. So to speak about vitality as Okay,
Speaker 1: let's talk about your body and then let's talk about
Speaker 1: your mindset as two set things. It just seemed like
Speaker 1: this complete and utter lie to me. So I said,
Speaker 1: you know, we have to we have to bring these
Speaker 1: all together because it's it's just one universal feedback mechanism. Sure,
Speaker 1: that makes a lot of sense. I mean, when we're
Speaker 1: feeling depressed or from feeling just like I don't want
Speaker 1: to get you know, like I don't want to do
Speaker 1: this day today, Like what's my reaction. It's to stay
Speaker 1: in bed all day. So that's a very physical reaction. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the inverse of that must be true too, when
Speaker 1: I'm like I'm excited for the day and then I
Speaker 1: want to be vital Yeah. I mean I look at
Speaker 1: the research that goes the other way now too, Like
Speaker 1: you've got like Amy Cuddi's work on how literally standing
Speaker 1: in a particular posture changes your state of mind or
Speaker 1: you know, if you're physically ill or physically in pain
Speaker 1: or physically injured, it is going to trickle back up
Speaker 1: into your brain and into your psychology as well. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: So let's talk about just a couple things people can
Speaker 1: do to fill their vitality bucket without giving away too much.
Speaker 1: Can I choose some? Yeah, sure, go for it. So
Speaker 1: how can people make exercise more fun than sex? Maybe
Speaker 1: the most provocative title in the whole, like you go
Speaker 1: for first? You know, it's really interesting. When we were kids,
Speaker 1: as a general rule, we exercise harder than your average
Speaker 1: adult will ever exercise. We literally we got home from school,
Speaker 1: we ran around all day. We played, we were in
Speaker 1: the school yard, we did all sorts of things. We
Speaker 1: were moving our body literally until we just couldn't keep
Speaker 1: our eyes open and then we dropped. You know, but
Speaker 1: back then we called it play and we couldn't get
Speaker 1: enough of it. And then you sort of zoom the
Speaker 1: lens up into you know, quote grown up exercise, and
Speaker 1: everybody sort of immediate responds, with the exception of a
Speaker 1: small number of people, is you know, this is something
Speaker 1: that I have to suffer through. It's something that I
Speaker 1: have to endure. I got really curious about why that is.
Speaker 1: You know, when did play turn into exercise? And when
Speaker 1: did something that we couldn't get enough of turn into
Speaker 1: something that we dreaded? And how did that happen. And
Speaker 1: from what I've seen, and you know, I have a
Speaker 1: background in the fitness industry and the health and fitness
Speaker 1: industry as an entrepreneur as well, and what I saw
Speaker 1: really quickly is that what we've done is essentially we've
Speaker 1: taken play and as we've sort of you know, industrialized fitness,
Speaker 1: We've taken the novelty out of it, we've taken this
Speaker 1: socialization out of it, we've taken all the things that
Speaker 1: would actually engage your mind in it, and we've kind
Speaker 1: of stripped it from it. So what we've left people
Speaker 1: with are monotonous, boring, repetitive motion movements that of course,
Speaker 1: you know, like we dread because if you put the
Speaker 1: average five year old on a treadmill and said, you know,
Speaker 1: like walk at four miles per hour for the next
Speaker 1: forty minutes, they're going to last you know, four seconds,
Speaker 1: and as adults were no different. You know. So the
Speaker 1: answer sort of in industrial fitness is well, add in
Speaker 1: distraction and entertainment and then have people plug in, which
Speaker 1: then further isolates you from the community and basically strips
Speaker 1: all possibility of finding a sense of belonging and companionship
Speaker 1: as well. And it's really kind of tragic because it's
Speaker 1: taking something that innately in it's sort of like most
Speaker 1: natural form we love and we can't get enough of,
Speaker 1: and it's fabulous for us, and it's basically taking all
Speaker 1: the things that make it wonderful and stripping it out
Speaker 1: and then forcing us back into a paradigm that doesn't work. So,
Speaker 1: you know, then along come a couple of players in
Speaker 1: the world who are starting to add it back in
Speaker 1: now places like CrossFit, places like Tough Mutter and all
Speaker 1: these endurance sort of like Activity is a soul cycle
Speaker 1: who's sort of putting a different spin on indoor cycling
Speaker 1: and all their variations of that. And what they're realizing
Speaker 1: is they've got to bring the mind engagement part back
Speaker 1: into it. They have to bring the community back into it.
Speaker 1: And then, you know, when you bring people into the mix,
Speaker 1: and then you bring the movement and the novelty, then
Speaker 1: you drop people into that, you know, like hyper present
Speaker 1: awareness state, and then you bring people into the mix
Speaker 1: and you've got communal movement and the oxytocin starts flowing.
Speaker 1: And that's how you make it more fun than steps.
Speaker 1: And maybe it's not more fun, well not all sex
Speaker 1: is necessarily done, and not all of it right right, So,
Speaker 1: but at least you know what you're doing is you're
Speaker 1: bringing movement back into your day in a way that
Speaker 1: it becomes a source of engagement and joy rather than
Speaker 1: something that you just like completely dread having to do.
Speaker 1: How can you make it when when and get good
Speaker 1: exercise from your sex? Well, there's some interesting resources that's
Speaker 1: been done on that which kind of showed that, you know,
Speaker 1: on a calories burned perspective, it's probably measured in it
Speaker 1: about moderate exercise, although the average bout when measured in
Speaker 1: the research is also probably so short that it's probably
Speaker 1: not a good idea to make that your primary source
Speaker 1: of exercise, although certainly you know, can be an enjoyable
Speaker 1: activity that you add into the mix. Okay, fair enough,
Speaker 1: So yeah, I like that. Do you talk about this
Speaker 1: this body mind connection and also exercise. You know, these
Speaker 1: buckets that you talk about feed into each other, that
Speaker 1: can interact, and I guess ideally is integrating them in
Speaker 1: your life. So let's talk about gratitude because that's you know,
Speaker 1: Bob Emmons others in the philipod psychology have shown that's
Speaker 1: a big boon for well being. Yeah, it really is right,
Speaker 1: and there seems to be so much research that's gone
Speaker 1: into it, although not always entirely reinforcing. You know, the
Speaker 1: different outcomes. You know, you had Seligman's who you know
Speaker 1: obviously you work with sort of earlier work and then
Speaker 1: around gratitude journaling. But what we know is that you know,
Speaker 1: in its various forms, done the way that works best
Speaker 1: for you, it is one of the most effective boosters
Speaker 1: of mood and mindset and affect that we have available
Speaker 1: out there. And to build that into a regular practice
Speaker 1: can be something that is really powerful and sort of
Speaker 1: like filling your vitality bucket. I guess what's interesting to
Speaker 1: me is that there seem to be some conflicting data
Speaker 1: and I'm actually curious what your lens is on this.
Speaker 1: Maybe you actually have more recent information on this than
Speaker 1: I do, since you're sort of in the academic space
Speaker 1: around it. But there seemed to be sort of a
Speaker 1: bit of a split in sort of the best way
Speaker 1: to do this or the frequency to do And I
Speaker 1: spoke to this a bit in my book, but I'm
Speaker 1: actually really curious what your latest thoughts are on this too.
Speaker 1: Oh well, I think the gratitude journal is still very
Speaker 1: helpful and you know, keeping a daily reflection of who
Speaker 1: do you have gratitude for in your life? And as
Speaker 1: well as like the three good things, it still holds
Speaker 1: up scientifically and you don't mention it as the three
Speaker 1: good things. But you mentioned the exercise absolutely, and I
Speaker 1: loved how a lot of people miss out on the
Speaker 1: dual aspects of the three good things. It's not only
Speaker 1: what are the three good things happening, but also what
Speaker 1: are the things that were negative? And then how can
Speaker 1: you frame it like what could you learn in a
Speaker 1: positive way from them? And a lot of people don't
Speaker 1: get that element into it, but that seems to be
Speaker 1: a really crucial part of it. Yeah, now I love
Speaker 1: that too, And I mean the other thing that I
Speaker 1: spoke to in the book, and I've actually seen so
Speaker 1: much less attention to this, maybe because it takes more effort,
Speaker 1: is the idea of the gratitude visit. You know, where
Speaker 1: you actually sit there and you write something to someone
Speaker 1: who's been meaningful to you, and then you make the
Speaker 1: time to actually be with them to share it with them. That,
Speaker 1: from what I've seen, is can be really profound. But
Speaker 1: I guess My sense is people don't reference that nearly
Speaker 1: as much because it just takes a bit more effort
Speaker 1: to make it happen. I think so, yeah, but it
Speaker 1: still doesn't mean that you know, it's worth the effort,
Speaker 1: of course. Yeah. Yeah, so that research is still going strong.
Speaker 1: You know, when you talked about that description of waking
Speaker 1: up and kind of in these two different paths, kind
Speaker 1: of you wake up the morning and you're just controlled
Speaker 1: by everything external, like the email and your mother and whatever.
Speaker 1: And I don't think you use the mother example. That's
Speaker 1: just my personal example. You know, verse is being fully alive. Now,
Speaker 1: I really would like to know on a personally do
Speaker 1: you it seems like such an ideal way of living.
Speaker 1: How close do you personally get to that? I mean,
Speaker 1: it sounds delightful if you know, kind of being able
Speaker 1: to do that second scenario you described, And it's interesting
Speaker 1: because I certainly aspire to be that person. But of
Speaker 1: course I'm utterly human. I have a family, I have
Speaker 1: you know, deadlines and stuff that happens, so that's not
Speaker 1: my one hundred percent reality. But what I will say
Speaker 1: is that I really do try and move through each
Speaker 1: day as intentionally as possible and I do wake up
Speaker 1: every morning and the first thing that I do is
Speaker 1: I have a morning ritual, and you know, the centerpiece
Speaker 1: of that morning ritual is a seated mindfulness practice and
Speaker 1: that really sets in motion the rest of the day
Speaker 1: for me to focus a lot more on being intentional
Speaker 1: and less reactive. And in fact, I have a bit
Speaker 1: of a daily challenge every morning in that I use
Speaker 1: an app on my phone as the timer for my
Speaker 1: meditation practice, and the icon for the app sits immediately
Speaker 1: above of the icon for my email and right next
Speaker 1: to the icon for you know, my Instagram. So and
Speaker 1: it's funny because logic would say, well, I should just
Speaker 1: put those things, those temptations in the furthest screen on
Speaker 1: my phone, and I haven't done that because I kind
Speaker 1: of feel like the first it's sort of like it
Speaker 1: sets me up so that even before I choose to
Speaker 1: sit and in my meditation, there is the slightest intentional
Speaker 1: app that precedes it, which is I have to look
Speaker 1: at my phone. I have to see that I get
Speaker 1: to make a choice, and then I have to choose
Speaker 1: not to check my email or not to check Instagram
Speaker 1: or some other social app, and just to tap the
Speaker 1: button which says, Okay, it's time to sit and it's
Speaker 1: time to practice. And as much as you know, I
Speaker 1: sometimes get really tempted, I feel like it's actually important
Speaker 1: for me to just start my day with that single choice,
Speaker 1: because it sets things up a little bit differently. Do
Speaker 1: you do the mindful? Do you listen to the mindfulness
Speaker 1: meditation that you recorded with your own voice? You know,
Speaker 1: it's funny. In the early days, I listened to me
Speaker 1: a little bit as that sounds. I listened to a
Speaker 1: bunch of other people. I happen to love hard word. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a little bit right. Tyr Brock has wonderful guided stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, like I've got guided meditations for other people.
Speaker 1: My friend Susan Piver has this beautiful weekly meditation that
Speaker 1: she guides people at the Open Heart Project. But for
Speaker 1: years now I don't have it guided. You know, I've
Speaker 1: been meditating for long enough now so that I actually
Speaker 1: prefer to just sit and sort of let my inner
Speaker 1: wisdom guide me. I like that. How many minutes a
Speaker 1: day on average do you meditate for I generally do
Speaker 1: a minimum twenty five, so somewhere between twenty five and thirty.
Speaker 1: So the final chime goes off at twenty five, and
Speaker 1: I'll often sit for just a touch more than that.
Speaker 1: So what's interesting. I've been doing this for years now,
Speaker 1: and it's amazing that I find it takes a good
Speaker 1: solid chunk of those twenty minutes for me to just
Speaker 1: kind of start to find some window of stillness and
Speaker 1: the practice, and you know, what you learn is that
Speaker 1: there's you know, that magical state where your mind just
Speaker 1: goes clear and you're able to let every thought go
Speaker 1: miraculously the moment and it happens, and come back to
Speaker 1: this center to open an aware state. Maybe that happens
Speaker 1: if you devote your life to practice in a monastic setting,
Speaker 1: but in everyday life, you know, that doesn't really happen.
Speaker 1: So my commitment is really just to make sure that
Speaker 1: I'm sitting every day. That's great. I really appreciate that
Speaker 1: you're you know, you're very honest and human about that.
Speaker 1: You know, there's some people, well especially you know, monks
Speaker 1: and people who've been meanting for so long that it
Speaker 1: can kind of seem very unattainable. You know, I know
Speaker 1: this one monk who was in the fMRI scanner and
Speaker 1: was able to be in there for like five hours
Speaker 1: then meditating, you know, maturo Card and it's like wow,
Speaker 1: you know, like I don't I mean being in an
Speaker 1: fMRI machine and meditating, you know, for that many You know,
Speaker 1: it's interesting though. I've actually had a couple of MRIs
Speaker 1: over the last few years, and the way and I
Speaker 1: think one actually lasted closed to an hour. The way
Speaker 1: that I actually was okay in it was I didn't
Speaker 1: mindful this practice the entire time I was in it.
Speaker 1: And so these large or like banging, clunking, whirring, buzzing
Speaker 1: noises that happened, you know, while you're essentially in this
Speaker 1: tube where there's an inch of room all around you.
Speaker 1: It made it so that it was actually a weirdly
Speaker 1: calm place to be. Yeah. I mean that's a good
Speaker 1: test if you can meditate in an fMRI machine, that
Speaker 1: I'm proud of you, that speak highly of your practice.
Speaker 1: So I want to talk about another thing to fill
Speaker 1: up your vitality bucket, which relates to your prior book,
Speaker 1: and that's owning the Unknown. Yeah, this is a theme
Speaker 1: that you've been really interested in for a while, right
Speaker 1: I have, you know, and I think it's a very
Speaker 1: personal one for me because I've been an entrepreneur the
Speaker 1: better part of my life, and also an artist on
Speaker 1: some level, the better part of my life. What kind
Speaker 1: of art What kind of artists? Yeah, when I was
Speaker 1: a kid, I painted a ton with acrylics and oils,
Speaker 1: and then I built a lot of stuff, and then
Speaker 1: I started to leave it all behind, and you know,
Speaker 1: my art main form of expression really became writing. And
Speaker 1: literally just this week I started to go back to
Speaker 1: the studio and do studio time for I'm learning watercolors
Speaker 1: right now, which is really frustrating because I've never worked
Speaker 1: with him before and it's not the easiest medium to
Speaker 1: just sort of like jump in and pick up. But
Speaker 1: what I learned along that is that, you know, you
Speaker 1: have to be able to exist in this place of
Speaker 1: not knowing and just continuing to work and do the
Speaker 1: work and experimenting. And you do that for sometimes years,
Speaker 1: and then over time, even when you develop that sense
Speaker 1: of taste that Ira Glasses famously talked about, you know,
Speaker 1: very often it's still years longer than that until you
Speaker 1: develop also the skills and the abilities to be able
Speaker 1: to express in the world that thing that you see
Speaker 1: in your mind. And it can be frustrating and you
Speaker 1: may not know exactly how to get there, and you
Speaker 1: have to try a whole bunch of different things and
Speaker 1: invest yourself and resources not knowing how it's going to
Speaker 1: work out. And if you're not okay going to that
Speaker 1: space where you have to take action and make choices
Speaker 1: without complete information and not knowing how it's going to end,
Speaker 1: it can not only be pretty devastating psychologically, but it
Speaker 1: can also just be pretty stifling in terms of you
Speaker 1: ever getting to a place where you feel like you're
Speaker 1: fully expressed, you really can try to the world in
Speaker 1: the most meaningful way possible. Absolutely, So how does that
Speaker 1: relate to owning the unknown or being comfortable with unpredictability? Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I mean it's the best work that I found comes
Speaker 1: when you let go of certainty. So when you basically
Speaker 1: step out of that place and say, okay, I pretty
Speaker 1: much know how this is going to end. I know
Speaker 1: all the variables that's really safe for me, and then
Speaker 1: you create within that realm. You generally don't create stuff
Speaker 1: that's all that satisfying for you or all that meaningful
Speaker 1: for anybody else. You know, the really creative stuff, the
Speaker 1: real form of innovation and expression and growth happens when
Speaker 1: you actually step out into the unknown where you don't
Speaker 1: know if you're going to succeed or fail. You don't
Speaker 1: know if you have the skills and abilities to make
Speaker 1: it happen or the resources. Yet you take action anyway,
Speaker 1: and you continue to sort of, you know, wade into
Speaker 1: the abyss, and the longer you're able to be in
Speaker 1: that place. What I've seen, both through my own experience
Speaker 1: and through interviewing a lot of people over the years
Speaker 1: now is that if you the longer you're in that
Speaker 1: space where you can continue to ask the questions and
Speaker 1: continue to make choices and continue to take action in
Speaker 1: that space of uncertainty, the more likely it is that
Speaker 1: you keep going deeper and deeper and getting to better
Speaker 1: and better ideas and better and better solutions. We see
Speaker 1: this in brainstorming. You know, there's sort of a three
Speaker 1: phase approach to brainstorming. You know. Phase one is you
Speaker 1: come up with all the obvious ideas, and that comes
Speaker 1: fairly quickly, and they're usually pretty mundane, it's not really
Speaker 1: the good stuff. And then some people will push through
Speaker 1: to phase two, and that's where it gets pretty hard
Speaker 1: and grueling. You feel like you have nothing left, and
Speaker 1: you don't know anymore, and you're you're on this really
Speaker 1: fragile ground and you're exposed. And people hate being exposed
Speaker 1: because you don't know if you're going to be able
Speaker 1: to figure it out. But you start throwing out ideas
Speaker 1: and they're better because you're working harder, you're going deeper.
Speaker 1: But as a general le even those ideas aren't the
Speaker 1: real sort of evolutionary innovative ones. And then a small
Speaker 1: number of people stay in this process as long enough,
Speaker 1: They stay in that place of uncertainty and unknown long enough,
Speaker 1: and they endure it to a point where that next wave,
Speaker 1: the third wave of truly extraordinary, riveting innovative ideas start
Speaker 1: to emerge. And that's the place where real magic take
Speaker 1: hold in art, in innovation, in business, and in life.
Speaker 1: Yet most of us are so physically and psychologically uncomfortable
Speaker 1: staying in the process taking action in the face of
Speaker 1: absolutely not knowing how it's going to end, that we
Speaker 1: run from it or we shut it down. So for me,
Speaker 1: you know, developing the ability to be in that place
Speaker 1: long enough for your greatest work to emerge is something
Speaker 1: that I just think is so empowering for anybody who's
Speaker 1: willing to do that work. Absolutely, I love that. And
Speaker 1: if fear and anxiety is definitely one of the major
Speaker 1: blockages to creativity. And this relates to your excellent ted
Speaker 1: X talk at my alma mater, Carnegie Mellon. Great talk,
Speaker 1: and the point of that, you know, a major point
Speaker 1: of that talk is you know how you can kind
Speaker 1: of reframe your anxiety in a way that it could
Speaker 1: be a fuel for action. And I thought you could
Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about that. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's a really powerful and fairly straightforward technique. You know,
Speaker 1: in all sorts of different ways worlds, people call it reframing.
Speaker 1: I guess more classically it would be called cognitive reappraisal
Speaker 1: on the therapeutic world. But it starts with the understanding
Speaker 1: that whatever the story is you're telling in your head
Speaker 1: is very likely the story you're telling in your head
Speaker 1: not the only story, and very likely also not the
Speaker 1: real story. And rather than saying, you know, most people
Speaker 1: ask the question what if I fail, and then telling
Speaker 1: the failure story and painting this vivid doomsday scenario in
Speaker 1: their head and then hitting spin so that eventually they
Speaker 1: start to believe that's the only inevitable outcome, and that
Speaker 1: just that paralyzes you. It completely destroys the possibility of
Speaker 1: doing anything meaningful. So rather than doing that, it's I
Speaker 1: think it's important to ask that question. You know, you
Speaker 1: should actually look at the failure scenario. But that's where
Speaker 1: most people stop, and to me, that's actually the starting point,
Speaker 1: you know. So what we do is we add a
Speaker 1: series of questions to that. So then you add to that, well,
Speaker 1: and how will I recover? And then you actually you
Speaker 1: plan this out, you know, and you paint this scenario. Okay,
Speaker 1: so if this happens, then here's time I'm actually going
Speaker 1: to recover and continue to move forward. And then you
Speaker 1: add to that two other questions and then one is
Speaker 1: what if I do nothing? And for most people, this
Speaker 1: is actually the most terrifying story that they'll tell, because
Speaker 1: if they're not happy with the way their life is,
Speaker 1: their relationship, their career, whatever it may be, and they
Speaker 1: keep tracking that out, you know, in the sort of
Speaker 1: slow gradual decline over paired of years, it's a devastating
Speaker 1: scenario if you're really honest about the story that that tells.
Speaker 1: So I think it's really important to get real about
Speaker 1: the inaction story as well. And then the final one
Speaker 1: is what if I succeed, you know, and paint an
Speaker 1: equally vivid and beautiful picture about that. And you know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of interesting. The Ted talk is a number
Speaker 1: of years old now, and this was just sort of
Speaker 1: stuff that came to me through my own work and
Speaker 1: talking to a lot of different people. I think looking
Speaker 1: back at that, those ideas are those questions, there's a
Speaker 1: really interesting overlay. It's funny, I actually didn't put this
Speaker 1: together until we're just talking this out right now. This
Speaker 1: is a really interesting overlay with Gabrielle. How do you
Speaker 1: pronounce her last name? I just say odin odngin Gabrielle
Speaker 1: odingin sort of like whole whoop approach, you know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: lot that you talk about whoop in your book. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, because it's like, hey, listen, own the fact
Speaker 1: that stuff might get hard, and plan, you know, actually
Speaker 1: plan how you're going to respond to it in event,
Speaker 1: so that if it does, in fact happen, it's not
Speaker 1: going to wipe you out for sure. So all these
Speaker 1: things that we just talked about will help you build
Speaker 1: up your vitality bucket. Let's move on to your connection buckets.
Speaker 1: So what is a social set point? What does that mean? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's kind of interesting what I've experienced
Speaker 1: in my own life and a lot of people that
Speaker 1: sort of worked with, and it seems like this is
Speaker 1: sort of emerging a bit in some of the search.
Speaker 1: Is that we're all wired to a certain extent along
Speaker 1: a scale of introversion, ambroversion, and extroversion. Where are you?
Speaker 1: I am very much towards the introversion side of the scale.
Speaker 1: I'm curious about you. Oh, I'm still trying to figure
Speaker 1: myself out. I you know, like I feel like you
Speaker 1: give me two cups of coffee and I'm an extrovert,
Speaker 1: but my default feels introvert. Yeah. No, I think my
Speaker 1: default definitely is. But what's interesting to me is I
Speaker 1: didn't really understand the difference until I just spent some
Speaker 1: time with Susan Kaine, who we both know and who's
Speaker 1: written this wonderful book called Quiet, and when she really
Speaker 1: explained to me, like, the real easiest way to explain it,
Speaker 1: I think is that introverts are not anti It's not
Speaker 1: that you're antisocial. You may well love people, but the
Speaker 1: way that you engage with them is different. So I
Speaker 1: love sort of smaller, more intimate individual or small group conversations,
Speaker 1: and it's not unusual for me if I'm around larger
Speaker 1: groups of people to be okay. But the big difference
Speaker 1: is that after that conversation, I'm generally left relatively empty,
Speaker 1: so I need to go step away from people in
Speaker 1: order to sort of refuel my tank. Whereas I have friends,
Speaker 1: actually colleagues, like on our team, who are raging extroverts,
Speaker 1: and the thing that fills them up more than anything
Speaker 1: else is being around large numbers of people. So and
Speaker 1: this can be really if you understand this about yourself,
Speaker 1: you can actually construct your life and your work life
Speaker 1: in a way that ends up being much more filling
Speaker 1: than emptying. So interesting example, we not too long ago,
Speaker 1: every year we run a summer camp for adults where,
Speaker 1: you know, the better part of four hundred people get
Speaker 1: on planes, trains and automobiles to go and live communally
Speaker 1: for close to four days together. So it's twenty four
Speaker 1: to seven people from all over the world, and it's
Speaker 1: this amazing, amazing experience. But at the same time, how
Speaker 1: does somebody who's fairly introverted handle that? And so the
Speaker 1: way that way that we've kind of done it is
Speaker 1: that we've actually assembled the team fairly deliberately of pretty
Speaker 1: raging extroverts around us who like they kind of have
Speaker 1: two purposes. One is they serve as a bit of
Speaker 1: a buffer. But two is they go out and they
Speaker 1: are the happiest people in the world when they are
Speaker 1: the entertainers and they engage and they work with all
Speaker 1: these different people. So we actually build our experiences and
Speaker 1: our faculty in a way where we understand the social
Speaker 1: set points of the different people on the team and
Speaker 1: the social needs, what fills and empties each person, and
Speaker 1: we design the experiences and our teams to sort of
Speaker 1: allow for the best blend of leaving everybody as full
Speaker 1: as possible. Well, the Quiet Revolution folks would have loved
Speaker 1: that idea. Yeah, that's wonderful that you take that into consideration.
Speaker 1: It would be great if business, more businesses and schools
Speaker 1: took that into consideration. Yeah, and I guess that's what
Speaker 1: sort of Susan the whole Quiet Revolution gang is working
Speaker 1: on now. So for sure, I hope it gets the
Speaker 1: type of traction and attention that I really think it deserves. Yeah,
Speaker 1: me too. I love this other one. You talked about
Speaker 1: under that contribution nursary, under the connection bucket, finding your tribe,
Speaker 1: I would say, you know, but you say find your people,
Speaker 1: So tell me why that's important. Yeah, you know, one
Speaker 1: of the most fundamental human needs is the need to
Speaker 1: belong and it's something that both isn't spoken about a
Speaker 1: whole lot these days. But a more concern to me
Speaker 1: is that the sort of traditional fastness of belonging, the
Speaker 1: things that provided this sense of belonging are either going
Speaker 1: away or they're just they're not providing the same thing anymore.
Speaker 1: So what are those things? Well, traditionally it was faith
Speaker 1: based organizations, it was employers, it was local trade groups
Speaker 1: or leagues, and you know, local trade groups and leagues
Speaker 1: are largely vanishing these days. Employers generally, you know, there's
Speaker 1: such a short time span that the average person is
Speaker 1: at any one company that they're not all that invested
Speaker 1: in building or delivering a sense of belonging. And the
Speaker 1: single fastest growing group of people when it comes to
Speaker 1: faith or religion, at least in the United States, or
Speaker 1: what they call the nuns, mean people who consider themselves
Speaker 1: spiritual but non affiliated with any particular faith, and they
Speaker 1: don't attend to congregation or any sort of community. So
Speaker 1: you know, we've got this need. We actually have a
Speaker 1: physiological and a psychological need to belong. We literally wither
Speaker 1: on the vine when we don't have When you said
Speaker 1: that it was very profound. You had one line in
Speaker 1: that book where you're basically like, isolation, you wither and die.
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh my gosh. Yeah. And you know,
Speaker 1: it's fun because, especially as an introvert, sometimes I get
Speaker 1: a little commerdially I'm like, ah, I'm pretty good alone,
Speaker 1: But the truth is I'm not. You know, the truth
Speaker 1: is I love time in solitude, but I also I
Speaker 1: have to have my time that's nourishing in my community
Speaker 1: where you know, I'm around people who are like minded,
Speaker 1: share a set of values and beliefs, share similar aspirations
Speaker 1: and a similar ethos about what matters in the world.
Speaker 1: And that's why a lot of what we do also
Speaker 1: we build community. We tended to build a lot of
Speaker 1: our programming so that even if it's a product, or
Speaker 1: even if it's a book, you like, we're building a
Speaker 1: community around our entire company and around this book. Because
Speaker 1: to me, information isn't enough. Knowing what to do isn't
Speaker 1: it enough? Community and building that sense of belonging is
Speaker 1: such a profound gap that is growing in people's lives
Speaker 1: these days that I kind of feel like part of
Speaker 1: what we're here to do is help close that gap,
Speaker 1: is help you know, give people something to belong to.
Speaker 1: And at the same time, I also feel like there's
Speaker 1: not really a lot of attention being given to this
Speaker 1: phenomenon of the profound need to belong and the solutions,
Speaker 1: you know, solving for belonging not really happening on the
Speaker 1: level that it used to anymore. And I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people are walking around feeling a sense of pain,
Speaker 1: feeling a sense of isolation, and not really understanding where
Speaker 1: it's coming from. And a lot of it is coming
Speaker 1: from the fact that they no longer have a clear
Speaker 1: place to belong to, a clear community or a group
Speaker 1: of people, and it's really I think it can be
Speaker 1: really destructive in a lot of people's lives, you know.
Speaker 1: So I wouldn't be surprised if even there was a
Speaker 1: certain amount of you know, self medication through everything from
Speaker 1: materialism to other stuff literally because people have felt so
Speaker 1: isolated and removed from that sense of belonging community I
Speaker 1: think it's a really great point. And I think you
Speaker 1: see that some of these when some of these I
Speaker 1: would call them needs are not being met, that they
Speaker 1: can play themselves out in other areas. So there's some
Speaker 1: people who really have a hard time connecting individually to people,
Speaker 1: but they will fill up their contribution bucket in a
Speaker 1: way that kind of fulfills that need because they feel
Speaker 1: like they're you know, they've created something that really helps
Speaker 1: a lot of people, and it kind of makes them
Speaker 1: feel like more of a connection in that way. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that can definitely be true, you know, I think,
Speaker 1: and it's funny. It's almost like, you know, when you
Speaker 1: look at two toddlers, they go through this early phase
Speaker 1: where they're kind of sitting next to each other on
Speaker 1: the floor and they know that they're there and they're
Speaker 1: both playing and they're both giggling, but they're not actually
Speaker 1: playing with each other, and they call it parallel play.
Speaker 1: And to a certain extent, you know, I don't even
Speaker 1: know if you have to be interacting with each other,
Speaker 1: but just like knowing that you're there with others who
Speaker 1: sort of like art a similar point and sort of
Speaker 1: see the world similarly, and you're just kind of physically
Speaker 1: with them. I think that alone has a certain value
Speaker 1: as well. Absolutely so with the connection when you talk
Speaker 1: about some other things that are just so important. And
Speaker 1: I want people to read your book, so I'm not
Speaker 1: going to put give it all away, but this one
Speaker 1: just resonate with me so much. Vanquishing the vampires in
Speaker 1: your life, I mean, I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: can really resonate with that. You know, sometimes I think
Speaker 1: we all kind of get stuck. It can feel like
Speaker 1: we're stuck with people in our lives that don't make
Speaker 1: us feel vital, right, So like the other buckets as
Speaker 1: well are not, you know, happening. So what do you
Speaker 1: do about that? Yeah, you know, And I think that's
Speaker 1: one of the biggest challenges for so many people. And
Speaker 1: the truth is there's no easy answer. But I think
Speaker 1: there's a preliminary question that can be really helpful, which
Speaker 1: is how critical are these people in your life? You know,
Speaker 1: they're sort of a popular or self help wisdom that says,
Speaker 1: just jettison to anyone from your life who doesn't automatically
Speaker 1: love you up and agree one hundred percent with everything
Speaker 1: that you want to do. And yeah, that's just The
Speaker 1: reality on the ground is, you know, once you reach
Speaker 1: a certain point in your life, especially you know, those
Speaker 1: people may be your close family, they may be your
Speaker 1: close friends. They may just disagree with you, you know,
Speaker 1: although they may also be at a point where they're
Speaker 1: just lens on the world is so different from yours
Speaker 1: at being around them is very empty and not all
Speaker 1: that feelings. So I think part of it is understanding
Speaker 1: what's this person's role and value in your life, and
Speaker 1: do you want to keep them in your life because
Speaker 1: they're important to you or not even do you want
Speaker 1: to keep them but they are going to be in
Speaker 1: your life or as long as you're both around. So
Speaker 1: then you know, if the answer to that question is yes,
Speaker 1: then it makes sense to actually say, hey, listen, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've sensed something here, but this is going
Speaker 1: well and I feel like when we're around each other,
Speaker 1: we're both essentially emptying each other out, you know, So
Speaker 1: before you just go say hey, listen like you need
Speaker 1: to be out of my life, really understand what's the
Speaker 1: deeper nature of this relationship and is it something where
Speaker 1: actually it makes sense to have a more deliberate conversation
Speaker 1: before you just sort of like start jettisoning people out
Speaker 1: of there because there will be. And then if the
Speaker 1: answer is well, I can't do I can't remove this
Speaker 1: person from my life, but there still really, you know,
Speaker 1: there's a draining energy when I'm around them, Then the
Speaker 1: question becomes how can you create enough of a buffer
Speaker 1: in the way that you interact with them so that
Speaker 1: it does the least amount of harm? And then how
Speaker 1: can you really really really focus heavily on your own
Speaker 1: self care so that it fills you as much as
Speaker 1: humanly possible to give you sort of the biggest possible
Speaker 1: reserve to be able to respond to that person. And
Speaker 1: then there's a third thing also, which is a long
Speaker 1: term practice, which is really developing almost a loving kindness
Speaker 1: and a sort of a compassion based practice and really
Speaker 1: trying to understand what's making this person this way, and
Speaker 1: can I stand in their shoes and find a place
Speaker 1: of compassion for them rather than just sort of like
Speaker 1: judgment and a fierce desire to remove them from my existence. Yes,
Speaker 1: there go again with your interaction between the buckets. Like
Speaker 1: you can imagine, the more vital you are, the more
Speaker 1: you can withstand vampires in your life. Because you've built
Speaker 1: up that inner reserve. Yeah, so mindful. Mind Yeah, mindful
Speaker 1: is huge because did we say that at the same time,
Speaker 1: right we did. I think that's a great connection, right right,
Speaker 1: So totally tune in there, Yeah, because you know, if
Speaker 1: you're the more part of the mindfulness practice is the
Speaker 1: practice of dropping, you know, and it allows you to say, oh,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, like let me just drop that storyline,
Speaker 1: let me just drop that if I'm really annoyed. You know,
Speaker 1: this is actually an internal process for me right now,
Speaker 1: I'm the one who's spinning it in my head even
Speaker 1: though this happened hours ago, and that mindfulness practice, it's
Speaker 1: sort of it trained you to be able to recognize
Speaker 1: that spin cycle and step out of it much more readily.
Speaker 1: Sounds good to me. So for the last part of
Speaker 1: this interview, just a couple more minutes here, I want
Speaker 1: to talk about the contribution bucket, and this is where
Speaker 1: meeting and purpose comes into one's life. And you know
Speaker 1: a lot of people do have that thing where they say,
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is that I like, I
Speaker 1: want to be sparked. I want to have that spark,
Speaker 1: but I'm kind of missing it. What would you recommend
Speaker 1: for people like that. Yeah, it's interesting. There's been a
Speaker 1: bit of a maniacal focus on like you have to
Speaker 1: find the thing that you're on the planet to do
Speaker 1: right your last chunk of years, no pressure, no pressure, right,
Speaker 1: this singular life purpose, that one passion that you're here
Speaker 1: to do, which I think can be so destructive for
Speaker 1: so many people. It's been my experience. It's just a
Speaker 1: practical matter that on really rare occasion you do find
Speaker 1: people who really early in life, they just they stumble
Speaker 1: upon that one thing and that's the thing they do
Speaker 1: for life. My dad, interestingly, is probably one of those people.
Speaker 1: He had one job for his entire life that he
Speaker 1: literally just retired from I think two years ago, and
Speaker 1: he actually researched human cognition and he ran a lab
Speaker 1: and that's what he did, and that was his mad
Speaker 1: passion and it still is even though he's retired from
Speaker 1: academic life. You know, but that's really unusual. Most people
Speaker 1: end up running a series of experiments to try and
Speaker 1: figure it out. So to me, a much better approach
Speaker 1: is to ask yourself, what can I do or what
Speaker 1: do I do that gives me a sense of passion
Speaker 1: or a sense of purpose. You know, what sparks me
Speaker 1: is sort of the language that I use, and I've
Speaker 1: sort of found like these five different categories of sparks
Speaker 1: in my mind. There's a curiosity spark, which is really
Speaker 1: you know, it's like you're driven by a question, a
Speaker 1: fierce need to figure out the answer to a question.
Speaker 1: You're deeply curious about something. There's a fascination spark, just
Speaker 1: you're completely and utterly fascinated by particularly very offhand it's
Speaker 1: the topic or an idea, and it's not necessarily about
Speaker 1: figuring out it an answer to a problem. You want
Speaker 1: to go deep into this topic or this area, this feel.
Speaker 1: There are immersion sparks that just drop you deep into
Speaker 1: a state where you love the feeling that you get
Speaker 1: when you're exploring it. There are mastery sparks, where it's
Speaker 1: really about a deliberate quest to reach a state of mastery.
Speaker 1: And there are service sparks, and these are generally fueled
Speaker 1: by some sort of deep inner calling to be of service.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's in general, other times it may be to
Speaker 1: a particular person or community. And of course, you know,
Speaker 1: there's some people that are strongly fueled by one of these,
Speaker 1: but there are also the people where there's all different
Speaker 1: blends of it. So my lens tends to be more
Speaker 1: to strut to ask yourself these questions. You know, when
Speaker 1: I think about the things that have really lit me
Speaker 1: up in life, what generally have they or that are
Speaker 1: lighting me up? Now? You know, am I driven deeply
Speaker 1: to answer a particular question? This is your typical scientists,
Speaker 1: you know, Am I driven by a topic? So and
Speaker 1: if you can find sort of the spark or the
Speaker 1: type of spark that really incites this sense of passion,
Speaker 1: this sense of purpose and just literally wake up and
Speaker 1: do more of that every day, you find yourself doing
Speaker 1: that for days and then months, and then years, and
Speaker 1: then looking back decades and you end up having lived
Speaker 1: a life pretty filled with purpose and passion and you
Speaker 1: never had to deal with that sort of I think
Speaker 1: false question of what is my you know, like what
Speaker 1: is my passion or purpose? As a noun, You treat
Speaker 1: it much more as a verb and say, what do
Speaker 1: I do with passionate purpose? Dang? I want some of that? No,
Speaker 1: that sounds really great. So along this quest of getting
Speaker 1: your passionate purpose, you're going to have lots of distractions, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's sort of critically important, and it kind
Speaker 1: of circles back to what we were talking about so much,
Speaker 1: circles back to mindfulness and awareness. The average person lives
Speaker 1: a largely reactive life right now. You know, from the
Speaker 1: moment you open your eyes to the moment you go
Speaker 1: to bed, there will be people and entities and beings
Speaker 1: be their friends, you know, like colleagues, employers, family, all
Speaker 1: coming at you through technology, through interactions, face to face,
Speaker 1: through so many different ways, asking for bits of your
Speaker 1: time and bits of your energy. And that's how wonderful
Speaker 1: is it to have people who would like you involved
Speaker 1: in what they're doing. You know. At the same time,
Speaker 1: very often, almost out of a sense of social obligation,
Speaker 1: we tend to just say yes, or out of an
Speaker 1: almost autopilot addiction to the intermittent reinforcement dopamine hits of technology.
Speaker 1: We end up actually just responding almost maniacally, without actually
Speaker 1: even thinking about it or being deliberate in any way,
Speaker 1: shape or form, And we end up spending our days
Speaker 1: literally almost entirely reactively reacting to the demands and agendas
Speaker 1: and requests of other people. And we go to bed
Speaker 1: at night saying wow, you know, like wall to wall,
Speaker 1: I was really busy, but I didn't actually end up
Speaker 1: doing anything that mattered to me on a deep level.
Speaker 1: And I think we've lost the ability to say no.
Speaker 1: Part of it is technology induced, but part of it
Speaker 1: is also there is just culturally an expectation of yes
Speaker 1: these days, instant and yes. That can be pretty compounding,
Speaker 1: and it's devastation because it stops you from actually preserving
Speaker 1: the band with needed to do the things that are
Speaker 1: deeply meaningful to you, the things that actually fill your
Speaker 1: buckets on a daily basis. So you know, literally being
Speaker 1: intentional and hitting pause and practicing saying no on a
Speaker 1: daily basis is a huge skill set that I don't
Speaker 1: think we focus on enough. I've actually sent emails in
Speaker 1: response to people who requested time for me or help
Speaker 1: from me, where you know, I say, hey, listen, you know, like,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for the invitation to participate in this.
Speaker 1: It sounds fantastic. Sadly, I'm already committed to things that
Speaker 1: are like deeply meaningful to me and that are taking
Speaker 1: you know, already one hundred and fifty percent of my time,
Speaker 1: So I have to decline your invitation and I've had
Speaker 1: people respond to me and say, you know one you know,
Speaker 1: of course I was kind of upset because I would
Speaker 1: have loved for this tour. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: I actually I really respect the fact that you're prioritizing
Speaker 1: things that really matter to you and you're actually making
Speaker 1: me think about me maybe needing to do something similar. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is really kind of cool to see when that happens.
Speaker 1: Living by example, it's great. Yeah. And you you refer
Speaker 1: to this as the loving no, Yeah, and I like
Speaker 1: that too. I mean it's yeah, because you know, it's
Speaker 1: all you got. I mean, for me, it's always about
Speaker 1: mindfulness and and you like understand people aren't just trying
Speaker 1: to extract the world from you like that. Everyone is
Speaker 1: trying to do their good work here, and so kindness
Speaker 1: is really important in my mind, you know, no matter
Speaker 1: what scenario you're in, I love that. I just a
Speaker 1: one final question I want to ask you today. And
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of these things you talk about
Speaker 1: with filling up these buckets, why is it not directly
Speaker 1: you know, why not write a book on happiness or
Speaker 1: how to get more money? You know, why on a
Speaker 1: good life? What's the difference? Yeah? And I think, you know,
Speaker 1: you certainly spend a chunk of time on this research too,
Speaker 1: And there have certainly been so many books on happiness
Speaker 1: over the last decade or so, and I think the
Speaker 1: topic has been extraordinarily well covered. But part of what
Speaker 1: the research is uncovering is that when you make actually
Speaker 1: attaining happiness as the primary end state, it's not unusual
Speaker 1: for you to actually end up less happy than where
Speaker 1: you started. And you know, so part of it is
Speaker 1: the fact that this sort of maniacal pursuit of happiness
Speaker 1: can set up expectations for an end state that's not
Speaker 1: attainable and leave you kind of anxious and stress. Part
Speaker 1: of it is also that there's you know, at least
Speaker 1: the research that I've been exposed to shows that we're
Speaker 1: not one hundred percent in control of that thing called
Speaker 1: quote happiness. That you know, there are certain things that
Speaker 1: we can do, but at the same time, there's a
Speaker 1: certain amount it's almost like a genetic set point for
Speaker 1: happiness that we tend to revert to, so to sort
Speaker 1: of say, okay, my happy should look like the happy
Speaker 1: of this person over here who's constantly bouncing off the
Speaker 1: walls and like wakes up smiling all the time and
Speaker 1: then never being able to reset because genetically you're just
Speaker 1: kind of wired a bit differently can set you up
Speaker 1: to actually feel even worse about the whole thing. And
Speaker 1: then there's a third confounding variable here, which is that
Speaker 1: it's really hard to understand what anybody's actually talking about
Speaker 1: when we use the word happy, you know, the very
Speaker 1: and this is why in the research, you know, the
Speaker 1: nobody defines happiness. You know, nobody defines the state of happiness.
Speaker 1: You know, generally the questions are asking people have they
Speaker 1: laughed in the last twenty four hours or have they
Speaker 1: been happy? But you can't give a universal objective description
Speaker 1: of it, so we end up with literature that's really fascinating.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, there is this big sort
Speaker 1: of gray, indefinable in the middle, which is what does
Speaker 1: it actually mean to be happy? So to me, you know,
Speaker 1: from what I've seen, the things that deliver people to
Speaker 1: this state that we call happy the most effectively are
Speaker 1: pursuing relationships, pursuing connection, pursuing meaning. And what tends to
Speaker 1: happen to happen is that this state of happiness ensues
Speaker 1: more as a side effect or a byproduct of those
Speaker 1: other things, rather than trying to sort of pursue it
Speaker 1: as a direct outcome and then very often ending up
Speaker 1: less happy than when we started. Absolutely, I totally love that, Jonvian,
Speaker 1: and I really like your book and the work you're doing.
Speaker 1: Thanks for chatting with me today. It's been my pleasure.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for having me. Thanks for listening to
Speaker 1: The Psychology Podcast with Doctor Scott Barry Kaufman. I hope
Speaker 1: you found this episode just as thought provoking and interesting
Speaker 1: as I did. If you'd like to read the show
Speaker 1: notes for this episode or here past episodes, you can
Speaker 1: visit the Psychology Podcast dot com bu